The squad of collegiate players dropped a 66-73 decision to San Miguel Beer’s Asean Basketball League (ABL) team on Saturday at Moro Lorenzo Sports Center inside the Ateneo campus.
The Philippines is the defending champions in the men’s basketball event of SEA Games.
“We’re doing good. I haven’t had a complete team yet. I will be able to gauge where we are by this weekend,” Black told the BusinessMirror on Sunday.
The young team managed to come up with a strong showing against coach Bobby Parks and the SMB team preparing for its ABL debut in January.
Black said Garvo Lanete, Ian Sanggalang, Jake Pascual and Ryan Roose Garcia were not able to join the team in the scrimmage for various reasons. Seven-foot Greg Slaughter also did not take part in the tune-up game.
San Beda’s Lanete and Pascual and San Sebastian’s Sanggalang took a break after playing in the championship series of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), while Garcia had a bum stomach.
“Tomorrow will be the first time we will be complete. We have tune-up games on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday against the same team, Cobra Energy Drink and probably against another D-League team,” said Black.
“I think there’s enough time for us to get better and those three tune-up games this coming week will help me to determine where we are right now,” the Blue Eagles four-peat champion coach added.
The other members of the pool are Kiefer Ravena, Clifford Hodge, Chris Ellis, Bobby Ray Parks, Nico Salva, Ronald Pascual, Emman Monfort, Jeric Teng, Jeric Fortuna, Jay-r Buensuceso, Justin Chua and Filipino-American Keith Jensen.
Former Smart Gilas players Chris Tiu and naturalized player Marcus Douthit were also part of the pool but they did not play in the tune-up match.
The Sinag Pilipinas basketball team started practicing early this month but several NCAA players were able to join only after their commitments with their mother teams.
Black said the team is set to leave for Indonesia on November 12.
Black, a grand-slam champion coach in the Philippine Basketball Association and a four-peat winner in the UAAP, said earlier that Tiu may be considered for the team if one of the players gets injured.
But with the young players having spent little time together on the court, changes could be made for other reasons. The 12-man roster, according to Black, was submitted for the purpose of fulfilling SEA Games accreditation requirements.
That means Tiu, the former Ateneo star and skipper of the national team that has seen action in various international tournaments the past two years, could be called to active duty if the young recruits fail to impress in their next few tune-up matches.
(Joel Orellana)
