DAVAO City dribbler Mario Emmanuel "Embons" Bonleon captured the StarHub Shooting Star three-point shootout crown in the 2010 Fiba-NBA Basketball Without Borders (BWB) Asia Camp at the Singapore Sports School Thursday.
Bonleon, a former standout of the Holy Child School of Davao (HCSD) Reds who is now a sophomore at the La Salle Greenhills, bested Corey Maynard of Australia in the finals.
Both Bonleon and Maynard arranged a titular showdown after Mohammed Otabachi of Syria and Fei Cao of China were eliminated in the BWB Asia All-Star Game halftime highlight.
Bonleon and Maynard went head-to-head in the final, which went into a tie-breaker after both finished with seven baskets each. But the six-foot-three Davao player never looked back to secure honor for the Philippines.
Bonleon then challenged Francisco Garcia of the Sacramento Kings for a round of three-pointers but the NBA mainstay prevailed.
Bonleon was among 50 selected players all over Asia who joined the camp. Others came from Australia, China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Kazahkstan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
In the All-Star Game, which served as the culminating activity of the four-day training program, Team White pulled off a 68-58 victory over Team Red for the title.
The White squad was coached by Taj Gibson and Don Newman of the Chicago Bulls, while Red was mentored by Garcia and Joe Wolf of the Sacramento Kings.
Other individual awardees were Singapore's Wenqiang Russel Low (Fullerton Hotel Hustler Award), Australia's Tom Daly (Nike All-Star Game MVP) and Chinese Taipei's Ying-Chun Chen (Nike Camp MVP).
BWB Asia Camp 2010 was jointly organized by Singapore Sports Council, National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (Fiba).