Basketball has become the first of 27 sports to announce draws for the Samoa 2019 XVI Pacific Games.
“The Games Organising Committee and Office are excited to release the first schedule for the upcoming Games. The release of the basketball schedule will enable teams to prepare well for the upcoming competition,” said Taupau Alex Mikaele, Sports Services Manager.
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) have worked alongside the Office in preparations for the Games which will be held from 8 – 17 July.
“We are happy to release the schedule and format of the competition of the Pacific Games to give teams ample time for preparation for the tournament. It’s going to be a spectacle and we are confident that the games will be one of the biggest events in the Pacific Games,” said FIBA Oceania Competitions Manager Amanda Jenkins.
The format for the competition will have the teams playing a round robin within their pool in the preliminary round of the competition, i.e., three (3) games over six (6) days.
The top placed team in each pool will advance to the semi-finals while the teams placed 2nd and 3rd in each pool will play cross-over qualifying finals (QF1 and QF2).
The winners of the qualifying finals will advance to the semi-finals (to play against the 1st placed teams from preliminary round).
The semi-final winners will play for Gold and the semi-final losers play for Bronze. The 4th placed teams from each pool and losers of the qualifying finals will play classification games for positions.
The Men's and Women's Division are divided into two pools, Pool A and Pool B.
The Men’s pools are as follows:
Pool A
• Guam
• New Caledonia
• Samoa
• Tonga
Pool B:
• Fiji
• Papua New Guinea
• Solomon Islands
• Tahiti
In the Women's Pools:
Pool A
• Cook Islands
• Fiji
• New Caledonia
• Samoa
Pool B
• American Samoa
• Guam
• Papua New Guinea
• Tahiti
The Pacific Games is a multi-sport event held every four years since 1963, and is contested between the Pacific Island nations associated with the Pacific Games Council.
The XVI Pacific Games will be held from 7-20 July 2019 in Samoa. It is set to attract more than 4,000 participants from 24 Pacific Island Countries including New Zealand and Australia.