by Dave Delgado

Guam - Team Guam's Basketball squad will be leaving island early Sunday morning, heading to Tianjin China for competition. The team is looking forward to competing against countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Macau and Hong Kong. Despite the lack of size, the national team will be looking to push the pace and hit shots from the outside.

EJ Calvo Head Coach, said, "Guam Basketball is always used to being small, we try and push the pace and we put on a lot of pressure. We are going to be setting a lot of screens for our shooters. We have a lot of good scorers, Joe Blas, JP Cruz and Will Stinnett who all can shoot the ball pretty deep. We are going to be trying to get them some good looks. We are also going to have to play some good defense because we are going to be out sized down low so we are going to have to be helping each other out in the rebounding column. We will have our hands full just fighting the bigger teams."

The team is stacked with a blend of veterans along with first time national team players eager to prove themselves. A total of 11 guys will be making the trip sporting the Guam colors and excited to gain international experience.

Team captain Will Stinnett said, "Some of the things we have been working on for the tournament is just getting the ball up court and getting into our plays real quick and attacking and kicking out, especially our defense, man to man and our trap. So that is what we are going to be looking for is our full court press I think this team is a lot more prepared for this tournament then the last time so hopefully we match up against someone like Hong Kong or Mongolia and I think we can compete and hopefully win a game over there."

Dominic Sablan added, "Guam is known for having a disadvantage in size but we do make up for it in speed so one thing coach emphasizes is conditioning and mainly explosion. So we have been doing a lot of that. We have 1 - 4 guys that can play just about all positions so we have a great advantage with speed and just because we don't have the height we will make it up with our speed and quickness."