Thursday, June 07, 2007 RP team gets Group of Death
“WE will go to Beijing or we will die trying!”
With this bold words, San Miguel-Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes accepted with grim determination the deathly fate that befell the national team during yesterday’s draw for the Fiba-Asia Men’s Championship in Tokushima, Japan July 28-Aug. 5.
Hoping for the best on its second major leap towards a return to the Olympic Games, SMC-RP overstepped and landed in a place where even angels won’t likely thread.
Instead of a fairly competitive but beatable group from which to launch their quarterfinal offensive, the Nationals drew Group A in the company of defending champion China and Middle Eastern powers Jordan and Iran.
With China virtually conceded a passage to the eight-team quarterfinals, this means the Nationals must get past the tough Jordanians and the extremely rugged Iranians, who ruled the Fiba-Asia Champions Cup in Tehran last month.
“Unfortunately, we’re in the Group of Death,” rued Reyes on learning of the draw’s result from Patrick Gregorio, executive director of Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, who flew to Tokushima the other day.
“You work so hard to prepare only to leave your fate to the luck of the draw,” Reyes said.
Representative
Group B has Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Japan; Group C—Qatar, India, Kazakhstan and Indonesia; and Group D—South Korea, Hong Kong, Syria and Chinese-Taipei.
Indonesia, the only other Southeast Asian team in the field, finished second to the Philippines during the Seaba Men’s Championship in Ratchaburi, Thailand two weeks ago.
The Seaba tilt was the qualifying tournament to the Fiba-Asia Championship, which in turn will pick the continent’s representative to the Beijing Olympics in August next year.
Reyes said before the draw that realistically it would be pointless to ponder which group the Nationals would fall into best.
He nonetheless couldn’t hide his dismay over the news that his team will be bracketed with China, realizing that the task at hand had just increased tenfold.
The feisty mentor remained undaunted, however.
“This team and this country have come too far to be denied,” he said. “It is not our style to dwell on negatives, so our only focus now is how to beat Iran and Jordan. China will take care of itself.”
China has won 14 of the last 16 stagings, with the Ron Jacobs-coached Philippine team beating the Chinese, 82-72, in Kuala Lumpur in 1985 and South Korea edging Japan, 78-76, in Riyadh in 1997.
The top two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals as A1-B2-C1-D2 and A2-B1-C2-D1, with the top two squads from each bracket squaring off in the crossover semifinals. (PBA Media Bureau)
