Belize won its first game of the COCABA tournament in Cancun today and it did so convincingly, trouncing Nicaragua 98 to 67 – a 31 point margin of victory.

Top scorers were Marlon Garnett and Keenan Jourdon - each had 16 points, while Richard Troyer and Alex Carcamo had 10 points each. Dakkin Braddick had 6 rebounds. The difference in the game was bench scoring, Belize had 44 points off bench, while Nicaragua had only 15. The difference may have also been down time. The Nicaragua team arrived in Mexico today after three days travel by road.

Keith Swift is in Cancun and here are his post game interviews:....

Alex Carcamo, Forward
“The game was good you know we had to get our little jitters out and what not. I don’t know if we were really happy with what we did, we could have beat them by more, but we just gotta go out and take it stride by stride.”
Keith Swift
“You think you guys didn’t do good enough? You won by over 30 points."
Alex Carcamo
“Nicaragua wasn’t anything compared to Belize this time around. We could have won by at least 50 points. I mean we sat out the whole second half, pretty much. It was good that we gave our younger guys an opportunity to get on the floor and show themselves."
Keith Swift
“Are you expecting tougher competition tomorrow against Guatemala?”
Alex Carcamo
“I hope so. I mean, I don’t want to go through an easy tournament and then we get up to Mexico or Panama or whoever it is and we’re not ready for them. But I think tomorrow it’s be much more smother and you know we’ll come out and probably do the same thing."

Keith Swift
So is the team gelling?

Alex Carcamo
“Yeah, you can see we’re gelling. I mean we’re very unselfish. I think point wise we might have been like 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, so we’re pretty happy with what we did.”

Keith Swift
“Anything you want people at home to know?”

Alex Carcamo
“If you guys can get out here it would be great. The atmosphere is great. It looks like the Civic right now. So I;m excited to see how the week is gonna turn out”

Keith Swift
“How was the game?”

Milton Palacio
“It was good. You know, it was a good to finally play against another team. You know we were just practicing against each other every night, playing hard against each other every night, guys were a little rusty, but you know what. I don’t want to get too over happy because it’s great that everybody came to play, everybody supported off the bench. We played good tonight. I wasn’t really proud of my performance but we won and that’s the biggest thing that matters. “

Keith Swift,
“What do you think about the competition, do you think it will get tougher.”

Milton Palacio
“We know it’s going to get tougher. We’re not going to sit here and start popping champagne or anything. We’re gonna take this as one victory at a time and tonight we’re gonna come in watch Guatemala and get ready to adjust to Guatemala tomorrow.”

Keith Swift
“What we some of the mistakes you saw made by the team?”

Milton Palacio
“I think the biggest thing is dribble penetration, they were penetrating a little too much on us. And I thought defensive rebounding was the biggest key. And I think that one we get those things done, we’ll be fine.”

Marlon Garnett
“I think it was a good game as a team. Don’t look at stats and personal achievement because right now we’re trying to build a chemistry, we’re tynna build a unit and the jersey that I put on, Belize is in the front, that’s the most important name not the one on the back, so I’m happy with the win that we got. I think we made somewhat of a statement. But that’s just a first game. It’s a good tune up game for us because we hadn’t did anything for about two days given that we didn’t have a chance to get into a gym yesterday to practice or this morning to get some shots up so I think it was good for us to kinda get a sweat, get the blood flowing. Hopefully everybody tonight will get a good rest, tomorrow we eat a good meal and come out tomorrow you know ready to prove something.”

Keith Swift
“Was the competition what you expected?”

Marlon Garnett
“I don’t really like to look at the competition. I mean, we have to kind of worry about ourselves. But at the same time when you play you don’t wanna play to the level of your competition. I think you wanna try to be the best that you can whether you’re playing against a girl’s team or whether you’re playing the Los Angeles Lakers. You got to come out 110% every time. I think we did a good job of that tonight but I think we also gotta improve on some things, and so we’ll see what happens.”

“Keith Swift”
“How was it for you.”

Dakin Braddick
“It’s all positive you know still working on our team chemistry right know but everything’s uphill form here, everything’s positive. We’re growing as a team though and it only gets better from here on up”

Keith Swift
“Is the Competition what you expected?”

Dakin Braddick
“I don’t really focus on any other team right now I’m just trynna focus and worry about our team right now.”

“Keith Swift”
“What do you think this team can do tomorrow when you face Guatemala.”

Dakin Braddick
“We growing out here every night. I can tell you for myself and my team-mates we gonna go out there with our hearts every night.. We play with all our heart.

Keith Swift
“Now if the organizers had gotten their way you wouldn’t have played tonight.”

Dakin Braddick
“That would have been a big disappointment because these are my roots and I don’t love nothing anymore than to go out here and represent Belize. So, that would have been a big disappointment to me.”