In a meeting held at the Northern Marianas College Gym, the referees group which was organized more than a year now identified power outages and punctuality of teams as the problems they encountered this year.
There are about for BANMI-sanctioned leagues this year.
The Bud Cup that ended a few months ago, the Friends of Mariana Islands First Intercolor Basketball Tournament which is set conclude today; the Inter-government/business Basketball League that is still going on and the Saipan Rotary Club Basketball Tournament that has yet to start next month.
Rufino Aguon, the Referees Association president said in an interview yesterday that since their group was organized, referees never become the cause of delays in the game.
The biggest problem the leagues encountered this time, he said is the power outages.
Although the Gilbert C. Ada Gym authorities were informed of the load shedding, there were a number of times that the games were interrupted due to unexpected changes of (loading shedding) schedule.
These caused the leagues to also change their own scheduled a number of time which in turn affected the referees’ own schedule.
Sometimes they come to waste gas going to the gym when the referees would find out later the game is cancelled.
This matter also brought the discussion to the next concern—punctuality of teams.
Aguon said the failure of a team or teams to show up in the game schedule also ruin the referees’ schedule.
This why, the BANMI is also organizing the coaches of all basketball teams.
BANMI is a chartered, non-profit organization established to promote the development of basketball in the CNMI.
