Arella Guirantes Confident in Puerto Rico’s Chances for 2024 Olympic Basketball

With her ticket struck out for the Paris 2024 pre-Olympic tournament, star guard Arella Guirantes has full confidence that Puerto Rico will achieve the long-awaited pass to Olympic basketball in February.

The Women’s National Basketball Team made its classification official after the two victories over Colombia and Venezuela and Canada’s victory against the Colombian team.

“With the group we have, I think anything is possible to be honest. Especially when we all have cohesion as a team. We have a lot of talent and a lot of contributing pieces. The more we push in uncomfortable games and continue to grow, I think the greater the possibility that we will play in the Olympics will be,” Guirantes said in a video call from Medellín, Colombia.

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The pre-Olympic tournament will consist of four tournaments that will be held in different parts of the world, with four teams per group, for a total of 16. The three best-ranked teams in each tournament will qualify for the Olympic Games.

Puerto Rico ???????? ✈️ secured its ticket to the Olympic Qualification Tournaments in February 2024 ????️ #FIBAOQT x #Paris2024 I @fbpur pic.twitter.com/MrZXByeFwN

— FIBA ​​in Spanish (@FIBA_es) November 11, 2023

For the Olympic Prequalifying Tournament, Puerto Rico with its best available players such as Guirantes, who was the best of the national quintet in the last AmeriCup with an average of 20.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists. Likewise, the National Team also had nationalized center Mya Hollingshed, who led the Puerto Rican team’s offense in the victory against Venezuela with 16 points and 11 sacks.

Among the other 10 basket players who appeared in the team were veteran point guard Pamela Rosado, Kaela Hilaire, Ahlana Smith, Allison Gibson, Brianna Jones, Tayra Meléndez, Ashley Torres, Isalys Quiñones, India Pagán and Jacqueline Benítez.

“Our goal here is to get through to the qualifier, so we are taking it step by step. I am happy that we met this goal and that the process to achieve it was an uncomfortable one. That taught us that we have some details left to work on as a team,” said Guirantes.

Of the two games that the National Team has had in the Prequalifier, the most uncomfortable for the “12 Guerreras” was on the first day against Colombia. In the 40 minutes of action, Puerto Rico did not find its offensive as a team, but they scored the victory thanks to a magical performance by Guirantes.

The shooting guard, who is also competing in the Euroleague with the Italian club Beretta Famila Schio, finished the night scoring 39 of the Puerto Rican quintet’s 80 points against Colombia. Guirantes was the only player who finished with double digits in points against the Colombian team.

However, Guirantes assured that the team has no problems on the offensive end and that night, it was simply her who had the hot hand and scored everything she threw.

“That was one of those games that everything you throw goes in. It doesn’t happen all the time, but in the case of a player like me it can happen any day and I think my teammates believed in me and chose to trust me. It wasn’t that they couldn’t score or weren’t aggressive, but when they saw that everything they threw went in, they decided to continue feeding the hot hand. The same thing happened yesterday with Mya,” she said.

Although its pass to the pre-Olympic is now official, the National Team will return this Sunday to the court of the Iván de Bedout Coliseum in Medellín, Colombia, to face Canada at 5:00 pm on the third and final day of the Olympic Pre-Qualifier.

2023-11-11 21:26:28
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