Players: RP 5 needs
taller, faster cagers
from Malaya, May 14, 2008
TO the eyes of young cage stars Gabriel Banal and Frank Golla, a roster that has the height and can run is needed for the Nokia RP Youth team to be at par with the region’s best when the FIBA-Asian Youth Championship is played this September in Tehran, Iran.
"We have to run and gun. We have to use our speed and outrun the opponents for us to beat them. So kailangan maganda talaga ang conditioning namin," said the 17-year-old Gabriel, son of former RP team mainstay and now Alaska assistant coach Joel Banal.
"Besides, malalaki ang mga kalaban natin, so mahihirapan talaga kami kung puro set-plays ang gagawin namin," added Golla, Banal’s cousin and team
captain of the 18-and-under national team being handled by coach Franz Pumaren.
The two appeared in yesterday’s PSA Forum at the Shakey’s UN Avenue branch, exactly a week after the RP juniors annexed the 7th South East Asian Basketball Association Youth championship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia via a 4-game sweep of the tournament.
Behind an average winning margin of 42.5 points, the Filipinos’ title romp earned them the right to represent the region – along with Malaysia – in the
FIBA-Asian Youth cagefest, an event the country last won in 1982 in Manila behind a team coached by the legendary Ron Jacobs and backstopped by cage superstar Hector Calma and the late Alfie Almario.
Repeating the same feat 26 years after would be a tall order to follow, according to Banal, with the presence of defending champion Iran, China, Japan, North and South Korea, and other upcoming Middle East powers.
"We heard Iran along has a couple of 7-foot-6 players in its line up," Banal said in the forum sponsored by Shakey’s, the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corporation, Accel, Brickroad gym, Aspen spa and MedCentral Medical Clinics and Diagnostic Center.
Golla added help is coming the team’s way with the acquisition of a 6-foot-3 Fil-Canadian player.
"I don’t know about the others coming in, but we really have to get more big players for us to have a shot."
The RP team captain said that while the SEABA joust allowed only 12 players per team, the FIBA-Asia meet is allotting a 15-man lineup per country.
The top two teams in the FIBA-Asian meet will be Asia’s representatives to the FIBA-World Youth Championship in 2010.
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