The island of Guam will play host to 22 national youth teams during the summer of 2017! The FIBA Oceania U17 Youth Championships will feature the top boys and girls from the region. Teams from the FIBA Oceania division (including Australia & New Zealand) will be competing in Guam in order to qualify for the FIBA World Championships in 2018 in (host country?).

The Guam Basketball Confederation (GBC) applied to host these games on island a couple months ago, and have recently received the news. “This is a great opportunity for us to host major competition in Guam in anticipation of our Men’s Team taking part in World Cup Qualifiers in the near future, where we may be hosting games against teams from around Asia”, stated GCB President, Tony Thompson.

According to FIBA Oceania President, Burton Shipley, “Oceania is such a diverse and expansive region, to have applications from a range of Federations from across the zone willing to host our Youth events is very pleasing. To be able to assign Championships for the next three years is reassuring on the strength of basketball here in Oceania and the commitment of our national federations to continue offering opportunities to their players, officials and supporters to be a part of International basketball”. Papua New Guinea will host the 2018 U15 Championships in Port Moresby and New Caledonia will host the U17 Championships in Noumea in 2019.

Team Guam Coaches will be scouting for top talent and training players to represent Team Guam at the U17 Championships next summer. Tryouts will be announced soon for interested players.

Follow GBC on Facebook @guambasketball for tournament updates and announcements. (www.facebook.com/guambasketball)