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JAKARTA—The
outcome was plain and simple. But explaining how it got
to that point, not quite so.
A handicapped Harbour Centre-Philippine
team fought mightily on one foot, but the blows it
absorbed from the foreign players of SM Britama-Indonesia
were too much to handle in a 93-85 loss in the Southeast
Asian Basketball Association (Seaba) Champions’ Cup
Saturday at the SM Britana Arena.
Playing with only one import, an RP loss
seemed a foregone conclusion. But why the Nationals
couldn’t play in the tournament with the six-foot-eight
Sam Ekwe was far from case closed.
Seaba officials had barred Ekwe from playing since
Friday because, playing as an import, he didn’t have a
player’s clearance certificate from his home country
Nigeria.
Basketball Association of the
Philippines-Samahang Basketbol (BAP-SBP) ng Pilipinas
executive director Patrick Gregorio flew in Saturday to
appeal Ekwe’s case to Fiba-Asia secretary-general Dato
Yeo Choo Hok.
“[Dato Yeo] and I were supposed to talk
because he was the one who was going to decide on the
matter, but for some reason we couldn’t get an audience
with him,” Gregorio said.
Optimistic of a decision in their favor,
Harbour Centre officials dressed up Ekwe and even had
him do pre-game round-robins with the team. When Harbour
Centre coach Jorge Gallent approached the table
officials to confirm his lineup, he was told Ekwe
couldn’t be fielded.
Gregorio spoke to reporters after the
RP-Indonesia game and said he had been in correspondence
with Nigeria’s basketball federation. But in two letters
of request dated March 26 and April 3 he showed to the
media, the BAP-SBP did not receive replies.
So Harbour Centre bore the brunt of the
consequences and trailed by as many 17 points a couple
of times in the first half. The Nationals attempted to
threaten in the third, but they never came closer than
five points. A TY Tang three-pointer put Harbour Centre
within 62-57, 3:50 left in the third, but the
Indonesians raised the lead back to double digits,
67-57, a minute later.
Ekwe’s absence had its handprints all
over the stat sheet.
Harbour Centre was outrebounded, 47-37,
and registered zero blocks. Indonesia’s six-foot-eight
Centre Jemino Sobers, Ekwe’s supposed matchup, imposed
his will down low, scoring 26 points, with a handful of
them on dunks. He also had 11 rebounds.
Alex Hartman, Indonesia’s high-flying
six-foot-seven forward, on the other hand, got away with
27 points and a lot of open lanes to the basket that
would’ve been shut with shot-blocking machine Ekwe on
hand.
The imports thus combined for 53 points,
or more than half the total of the whole Indonesian
team, a scoring binge that enabled the hosts to
virtually secure the Seaba Clubs championship.
“We found ourselves in a hole early
because the morale of the team got affected when they
found out that Sam wasn’t going to be able to play,”
said Harbour Centre head coach Jorge Gallent, whose team
was down, 29-21, after the first.
“But more than the emotional side, I
think what’s as important is the fact that we had set
plays both offensively and defensively for Sam. When he
couldn’t play, we had to make very abrupt adjustments
that basically shook up the team,” Gallent added.
Mike LeBlanc, Harbour Centre’s lone
import, couldn’t keep pace. He only had 14 points and
seven rebounds and was a sitting duck against Sobers on
their matchup.
“We just didn’t have the intimidating
presence that somebody like Sam would’ve brought,”
Gallent said.
“I don’t feel good about the decision to
disqualify me from the tournament,” Ekwe lamented,
stressing it would’ve been a different ball game had he
played. “[Indonesia] felt it won, but only because I
wasn’t there.”
Asked whether the experience here—his
first international tournament—left him traumatized or
not, Ekwe took it in stride.
“It’s always an honor to serve a
national team, and I will play if ever I’m called. But I
think every detail, every necessary requirement should
be in place first, so this won’t happen again,” he said.
Harbour Centre owner Mikee Romero, who
arrived here Saturday, was clearly distraught.
“Nakakapanghinayang,” Romero said. “We
really wanted Sam in there for obvious reasons. He
could’ve changed the complexion of the game in our favor
if he was in there.”
The loss was the first by a Harbour
Centre-backed Philippine team in three trips abroad.
Counting a 10-game winning streak in the ongoing
Philippine Basketball League (PBL), Harbour hasn’t lost
a game in three months.
Diminutive duo provides delight
THE lone
bright spot in the Nationals’ loss was the inspired
effort of guards TY Tang and Jason Castro.
Castro had 23 points and topped the team
with seven rebounds, while Tang, who had 21 in the
Thailand victory Friday, finished with 22.
The diminutive duo took their game right
through the heart of the Indonesian defense. Instead of
relying on perimeter shots (they only had four
three-point attempts), Castro and Tang drove to the lane
with reckless abandon, netting them 20 free-throw
attempts.
Ekwe, a San Bedan who once played a
collegiate series game against Castro’s Philippine
Christian U, was all praises for the guard’s skills.
“For me, Jason is the most dangerous
opponent I’ve ever met,” Ekwe said. “He can do
everything.”
Solomon Mercado, who played alongside
Tang in Harbour Centre’s last title drive, thought
highly of Tang’s work ethic.
“He’s all about heart,” Mercado said.
“That guy plays with a lot of intensity whether we’re
down in a game or not, and that’s something his
teammates like myself like about him.”
Like Castro, Tang, once a vital piece in
the recent De La Salle dynasty until he graduated last
year, is also set to apply for the pro draft. That makes
his stint here Tang’s first and last as an amateur RP
player and it has been, in a way, bittersweet.
“All losses are frustrating. There are
no two sides to that,” Tang said. “But we gave ourselves
a chance to win even if we didn’t have Sam around, so
you could call that a silver lining of some sort.”
The Nationals would’ve been able to pull
off a miracle if their shooting hands didn’t abandon
them. They were only four-of-18 from three-point area
(22.2 percent). They were also atrocious from the
free-throw line, missing 13 attempts (21-of-34, 61.8
percent), with Tang and Castro responsible for 10 of
those flubs.
Solomon torn apart
AS he
watched his team get manhandled by Indonesia, the best
Solomon Mercado could do to show his support to the team
was to throw invectives at the opposing team.
Mercado, a US-raised Filipino who has
been a vital cog in Harbour’s recent dominance in the
PBL, was sidelined for the Seaba Champions Cup because
of a groin injury.
“It was tearing me apart seeing my
teammates go to battle without me,” Mercado said,
“knowing I could’ve done something to help them.”
Mercado, a six-foot-one guard with bulk,
could’ve brought his defensive prowess against
Indonesia’s showman import Hartman and would’ve been
able to give Castro and Tang some quality rest time on
the bench.
Mercado, who is also joining the pro
draft, lauded his teammates’ efforts.
“They had two imports and we were
playing with one import who we didn’t practice with
much. So really, we were playing with our Harbour Centre
team so to be against an Indonesian team, that’s the
national team with two imports and for us to fight the
way we did, it showed a lot about our character and
attitude that we could play with the best of them,”
Mercado said.
Mercado and the Harbour Centre team are
flying back to
Manila Monday. They will resume their PBL Lipovitan Amino Sports
Cup campaign, where they are unbeaten in eight games.
With the international exposure here and
the quality performance to go with it, will any team
really be able to stop the Batang Pier?
“It’s going to be tough,” Mercado
admitted. “We ran through the first round pretty well. I
think we’re just now coming together, bringing all the
tools together, so I think we’re only going to get
better. We’ll be pretty tough to beat.”
And will the recent frustration going to
be thrown at some hapless PBL team? “Yeah, definitely,”
Mercado smiled. |
