Tracy Wickham has been appointed Team Manager of the Solomon Islands men\u2019s national basketball team ahead of the FIBA Melanesian Cup 2025, which will be hosted in Honiara next month.<\/p>\n
During a press conference\u00a0last week, Solomon Islands Basketball Federation (SIBF) President William Lai formally introduced Wickham and Louisa Murdoch as team managers for the men\u2019s and women\u2019s national squads.<\/p>\n
Wickham acknowledged the challenge of stepping into her new role.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is challenging, and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s been a female managing a men\u2019s team before, but I see my role as assisting the coaches and players, because we expect a lot of sacrifice from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the job is to ensure their commitment is 100 percent and to support them in every way we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that with the Melanesian Cup serving as a qualifier for the 2027 Pacific Games in Tahiti, the focus is not only on performing well in Honiara but also on building toward long-term success.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to support the players and coaches in qualifying for Tahiti 2027. This tournament is the first step in achieving that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have met with them and they are a very good group of boys, focused on what they\u2019re doing, and we are looking forward to the upcoming tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Melanesian Cup being staged in the Solomon Islands for the first time, she stressed the need for widespread support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need dedication not only from the staff and teams but also from the wider community. I\u2019m proud to step into this role for the first time, and I look forward to the challenges ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s team manager Murdoch also shared her excitement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am honored to lead and manage the women\u2019s team. I will do my best to support them both on and off the court. I\u2019m so excited for these games, especially with the Solomon Islands hosting for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final men\u2019s and women\u2019s squads are expected to be announced by the end of the week, with both teams heading into camp soon after.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Melanesian Cup will see the top two finishers from each category secure direct qualification for the 2027 Pacific Games in Tahiti.<\/p>\n
By TIMOTHY INIFIRI JNR <\/p>\n
Solomon Star, Honiara <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tracy Wickham has been appointed Team Manager of the Solomon Islands men\u2019s national basketball team ahead of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-158630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}