The Dominican Republic will host the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 Americas Qualifier. The president of the Dominican Basketball Federation (Fedombal), Rafael Uribe, made the announcement on 7 June 2017 after taking part in FIBA’s Mid-Term Congress in Hong Kong, and attending the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 Qualifiers Draw in Guangzhou, China.
“You know that our country’s national team has not hosted a game in seven years, since 2010,” Uribe said.
The tournament is scheduled to open on 27 November 2019. The Dominican team, which is coached by Melvyn Lopez, is in Group D, along with the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and Canada.
The team needs a top-three finish to get them into the Second Round and play six more games against the top three sides from Group B, which consists of Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and a team still to be announced.
Uribe would like to see the country’s most famous players, Karl Anthony Towns of Minnesota and Al Horford of Boston, don the national team uniform and play for the team in the third and/or fourth windows.
“That’s what we all would like to see,” he said. “Back in August, we had a nice conversation with Karl and Al. We spoke about the competition.
Both Horford and Towns have played for the Dominican Republic before. “Of course there are going to be windows where they cannot play because NBA players will have obligations in November and February but if they are not in the Finals in June/July and in September, they can play.
Before the start of the World Cup Americas Qualifiers in November, the Dominican Republic will compete in the FIBA AmeriCup 2017 (25 August to 3 September). The team will play in Group C against the United States, Panama and Uruguay in Montevideo.
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FIBA
8 June 2017
