Flight problems and late procurement of U.S. visas for some players affected their arrival in time for their opening matches of the tournament.

The men were down to play The Bahamas in the opening game on Saturday while the women were to oppose the U.S. Virgin Islands on Saturday, prior to the official opening that took place the same night.

Three of four home-based male players, along with coach Bobby Cadogan and manager Perry Woolford, were unable to explain the real reasons for nine players from overseas and themselves not being able to reach St. Thomas to contest this year's tournament.

Men's players Bruce Davis, Andrew Ifill and Lugard Mohan, along with coach Bobby Cadogan and manager Perry Woolford, were given non-immigrant visas by the Embassy officials on Friday afternoon while Steve Neils (Jnr) encountered problems with his, due to a torn page in his passport which had to be reissued; and the female players Nyota Peters, Nichola Jacobs, Jerri-Lee Johnson, Philomena George and coaches Bernard Daniels and Abdulla Hamid were all still without visas up to Saturday and are unlikely to get them before tomorrow.

President of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation, Colonel Godwin McPherson, however explained that the only airline which plied the route from Antigua to the U.S. Virgin Islands, LIAT, would only have been able to get the male players, who were here and ready to travel early Friday morning.

This would have meant the Guyana men's team missing their opening match against the Bahamas Saturday and the women forfeiting their games against the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But the question is whether some kind of arrangement could have been made for a postponement for Guyana for their late arrival today with the rescheduling of their matches.

It seems that the onus of putting these things in place were placed squarely at the feet of McPherson who was working overtime to ensure Guyana's participation.

Manager Woolford, who is a certified travel agent, is of the opinion that had Guyana's men team arrived in Antigua on Friday, he was could have gotten them on a flight out of the island to the U.S. Virgin Islands and that he was willing to take the chance of reaching Antigua and dealing with that situation then.