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SANTO DOMINGO.- The Dominican Basketball Federation (FEDOMBAL) has among its commitments the third qualifying window for the Copa América 2022 of the adult men’s team, for the month of February, which will be played in bubble format, due to the pandemic.
The initial information was given by Erick Rodríguez, from the digital medium The Gondol, who notes that the national teams of group C, made up of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, the US Virgin Islands and Canada; and those of key D, with those selected from the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas; They will be playing their games at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Puerto Rico, from February 18 to 22.
A source of knowledge told Salto al Centro that, as Rodríguez said, the delegation of the Dominican Republic must travel to Isla del Encanto to play its two remaining matches, and that the information will be official by the International Federation of Associated Basketball ( FIBA), no later than the 14th of this month.
In the tentative calendar published on the FIBA AmeriCup 2022 website, the bubble will start on February 17, with a single match between the US Virgin Islands against the Canadian national team; this last team will play its four pending games. For the second qualifying window, the Canadian team did not make the trip to the bubble at the Hard Rock Hotel Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic in November, by order of the government of the North American nation.
On February 18, Cuba will face Canada, also in a single match on the calendar published on the website of the world basketball body. These first two games are the ones that were not played during the second qualifying window in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
The Dominican team leads Group C with 3 wins and a loss (7 points) with a points differential of +37, while Cuba and the US Virgin Islands (4 points), matched with a win with two setbacks and a minus 25 in the point spread. Canada, which did not play in the second qualifying window, is 1-1 (3 points) and +13 in point differential.
The Dominican Republic will play its fifth qualifying match on Friday, February 19, against the US Virgin Islands, one of the three matches to date. The other games belong to the teams in Group D: Bahamas vs. United States; and Mexico against Puerto Rico.
The sixth and last meeting of the Dominican Republic in these qualifiers will be against Cuba, on Saturday, February 20. This is one of the four games featured in the calendar published on the FIBA AmeriCup 2022 website, which also has the games between Canada and the US Virgin Islands; Mexico against the United States; and Bahamas against Puerto Rico.
Canada will close its calendar on Sunday, February 21, when it faces Cuba, in a match that includes four other games.
For the Copa América 2022, the first three teams qualify at the end of the third qualifying window next February, an event that will allow the teams to fight for one of the seven places at the XIX Pan American Games in Santiago 2023 and qualify for the qualifying windows of the World Cup 2023 starting in November 2021.
The teams of Brazil and the United States, both unbeaten with 4-0 leading Groups B and D, respectively, are the only ones qualified for the Copa América 2022 at the end of the second qualifying window.
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