WANTED: NCC-LIKE GILAS-PILIPINAS
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 18 Aug 2013
The 2013 FIBA-Asia Championship silver medal team Gilas -Pilipinas was practically disbanded to give way to their respective mother teams in the ongoing PBA Governors' Cup. The Philippine national team will have to wait one year for the players to be available for regrouping and practice.
But the assembly of Gilas-Pilipinas will depend on the decision of the PBA Board of Governors to lend their star players for the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain. The schedule of the conferences will be too tight because of the delay of the PBA schedule for eight weeks to give way to FIBA-Asia. And the Board knew that the team will have slimmest chance to snatch a single win against the powerhouse countries in the world of basketball.
Thus the need to organize a permanent Philippine national men's basketball team in the mold of Northern Consolidated Cement of Ambassador Danding Cojuangco during the pre-EDSA era.
The first NCC team was assembled by eight naturalized American players including Fil-Ams Ricardo Brown and Willie Pearson and local players JB Yango and Frankie Lim under American coach Ron Jacobs. It was not accepted by the basketball-loving Filipinos as it was made up mostly of foreigners.
In 1983, a team from the standouts of the amateur and collegiate leagues was established with Jeff Moore and Dennis Still retained from the original NCC team to provide ceiling. The team went on to join the PBA in 1984 and 1985 seasons and eventually won the 1985 Reinforced Conference.
The NCC squad won 72 of the total 108 games they played in the professional league for a 66.7 winning percentage. They blanked Manila Beer, 4-0, in the only finals they played.
The NCC-backed national team won the 1984 ABC Club Championship and the 1985 William Jones Cup under the name San Miguel Beer. They represented the Asian region in the 1985 World Cup for Champion Clubs in Spain under the team NCC.
The team won the 1985 Southeast Asian Games basketball title and the 1986 Asian Basketball Confederation men's basketball crown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They could have qualified for the 1986 World Basketball Championship in Spain and the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow. But the 1986 EDSA Revolution caused the disbandment of the NCC basketball crew.
Smart Gilas-Pilipinas was built in the mold of NCC coached by Serbian Rajko Toroman with the aim of qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics. They formed a team of exceptional collegiate players, Filipino-Americans and a naturalized player in Marcus Douthit. It was financed by business mogul Manny V. Pangilinan.
Gilas team was eliminated by the Koreans in the quarter finals of the basketball competition of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. During the 2011 FIBA-Asia Championship in Wuhan, China, the Philippines lost to a heart-breaking 70-68 game to South Korea on missed free throws and failed to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. The Gilas team was then disbanded.
Most of the players were drafted by the PBA teams. Douthit remained a contract player of Smart. But he played as an import of the Air 21 Express in the 2012 PBA Commissioner's Cup.
The second Gilas-Pilipinas team under coach Chot Reyes was composed of PBA players reinforced by Douthit. They won the 2012 William Jones Cup in Taipei. And they won the silver medal in the recent FIBA Asia Championships.
In 2017, the FIBA-Asia Championship will be a home-and-away format and will encroach into the PBA schedule. Though still too far away, but the Philippine team should be prepared for a bigger and more prestigious tournament where the title is not for purposes of qualifying for the World Cup anymore.
Thus the need for a permanent Philippine men's basketball team in the mold of NCC is necessary. The players chosen from top collegiate players and some available professionals should be made to sign a contract with salaries. They should be reinforced by Fil-Am players and at least two naturalized players.
They should be allowed to play in the conferences of the PBA as a guest team. And the Philippine team should be given maximum international exposure.
It needs a fortune to finance the team like NCC. But the sports-loving and kind-hearted patron like MVP can sacrifice part of his fortune to form a more formidable Smart Gilas like his well-financed PBA teams Talk N Text Tropang Texters and Meralco Bolts.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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