BABA cancels rest of league season

The Barbados Amateur Basketball Association (BABA) has decided to take no chances where the coronavirus pandemic is concerned and as such has decided to cancel the 2020 Premier League season.

A recent press release sent out by BABA president Francis Williams stated that the league which commenced in January and was suspended in March with about three weeks to go before the playoffs were scheduled to begin will now restart in 2021.

Williams explained that while enthusiastic spectators were eagerly awaiting the return of court action, this decision taken by the BABA executive body on October 2 was not made lightly. Despite the league being called off, Williams is hoping that the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit would grant permission for the association to host a 3×3 competition.

He said: “The resumption of play in 2020 was always a slim possibility. Considering we are now into October and there is still a grey area regarding what we can or cannot do, we felt it made more sense to use the remainder of this year to fine-tune the protocols needed for a safe return of play in 2021 should permission be granted.”

The BABA president added: “The decision to cancel was not taken lightly, we looked at all available options that would allow for a safe and meaningful restart before concluding that it was not practical to resume at this time. However, being mindful that our stakeholders were thirsty for some form of competitive basketball, we will be going back to the government to seek approval to use the shorter 3×3 format as a means of providing some form of activity for our members before year-end.”

With this cancellation, Williams noted that while a champion would not be crowned, it also meant there would be no demotions for this year.

When the season was halted because of the Coronavirus pandemic, defending champions Burger King Clapham Bulls were ahead of the standings (11-0) with 22 points. Station Hill Cavaliers’ (9-2) results placed them in the second position and KFC Orange 3 Pinelands (8-2) completed the top three.

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb