Tampa’s Strong Dogs Set To Host Wheelchair Basketball Tourney

TAMPA, FL — The Tampa Bay Strong Dogs wheelchair basketball team is gunning for improved ranking ahead of a national tournament in Kentucky next month. The No. 5 ranked team in its division is playing host to a competition this weekend at Hillsborough County’s All People’s Life Center that may help it do just that.

The Strong Dogs’ fifth-place ranking is in Division II, Hillsborough County announced in an email to media. Should the team pull off victory, its members will get to make their eighth consecutive appearance in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s tournament later this year. That tournament is set to take place March 29-April 2 in Louisville, Kentucky.

But, before they earn a berth, the Strong Dogs have to finish this weekend’s Sunshine Shootout Wheelchair Basketball Tournament with good standing. The round-robin style tournament includes the following other teams:

• Miami Heat Wheels, No. 11 in Division I
• Shepherd Steelers, No. 17 in Division I
• Lakeshore Storm, unraked in Division I
• Fort Lauderdale Sharks, No. 7 in Division II
• Shepherd Steelers, No. 12 in Division II

“The Strong Dogs compete as part of Paralympic Sport Tampa Bay, a signature program of Hillsborough County Parks & Recreation,” the county’s email explained. “The team has 17 players, several of them injured veterans, who practice the physically demanding sport two hours a day, twice a week at All People’s.”

All games in the Sunshine Shootout Wheelchair Basketball Tournament will be played at All People’s Life Center, 6105 E. Sligh Ave. The schedule includes games at 9 and 10:30 a.m. and 1, 2:30 and 4 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18. Sunday games are set for 9 and 10:30 a.m.

Photo courtesy of Hillsborough County