Cebu Basketball in '09

CEBU – While Cebu Basketball in 2008 went well, so much more can be done and achieved in 2009. And so as the new year starts, we make our little corner’s wishes and forecasts for the year. While we’re no professional fortune teller, there are a few things which are certain to happen and few more which we would like to see develop. In the end, we’d like to see Cebu Basketball get back to its status as one of the country’s top sources of basketball talent, something which has been slipping away. We may not achieve it this year but there are things that can be done to get there.

As Cebu’s biggest and most popular basketball show, the CESAFI will be seeking ways to further strengthen its stature as Cebu ’s favorite event. Thanks to a more competitive line-up of teams, the CESAFI has become more unpredictable and this has drawn record fans for the past two years. The trend is seen to be maintained even if it looks like another UV year. That’s unless Greg Slaughter will be spending much of his time in Manila to train with the national training team pool. UC and SWU will be UV’s most serious threats this year as USJR and USC will also be there to pull a few surprises even if both teams are on a on a rebuilding mode. But the big question facing the CESAFI is how we’ll fare against Manila teams in the Phillipine Collegiate Championship this year.

At the Liga Pilipinas, Cebu City/M.Lhuillier will be hardpressed to defend their title but will still come out on top for the second straight year. Serious competition will come from the Pamapanga Buddies of Manny Pangilinan who is not known to scrimp on for his basketball endeavors. Mikee Romero’s Batang Taguig may not be as strong as last year as they’ll be focusing their efforts on Romero’s dream to break into the PBA. In the end, it will still be a case of the teams with the deepest pockets dominating the league.

Youth basketball will be very much alive now that all bases of the sport’s age group structure are covered. The entry of the 10-under age group in school-based tournaments has become a pleasant spectacle and we expect to see more this year. The 12-under and 14-under age groups are already covered by the Milo-sponsored BEST Center SBP-Passerelle Twin Tournament, the Cebu Youth Basketball League (CYBL) and the Futures Basketball League (FBL).

The National Basketball Training Center (NBTC) D-League will learn the hard way that it will take more than Nokia and local corporate sponsors to be successful in the long run. It is our wish that a Cebuano player will make it to the national 16-under team of NBTC Director Eric Altamirano.

Amidst all these activities that reflect the good news are items that we’d like to call as opportunity areas where Cebu Basketball can still work on. For starters, I wish that the ongoing clash between the two groups claiming to be the rightful managers of basketball in the country won’t be dragged down to our level. Let them do their fighting up there in Manila while leaving us to run our usual set of activities. Let’s give the SBP a chance to do their stuff and just hope that we aren’t forgotten in their scheme of activities. While we’d like to see the combo of Manny Pangilinan and Noli Eala kiss and make up with the pair of Butch Pichay and Graham Lim, we don’t see it happening soon. The SBP has the nod of the FIBA and let’s respect this. With the country’s major stakeholders behind the SBP, let’s move on and do something for the unity of the sport. Should the BAP insist on its own activities, then let them go ahead with these. With the PBA, PBL, UAAP, NCAA and Liga Pilipinas behind the SBP, I just don’t know which major organizations will come out and support the BAP’s calendar.

The other opportunity area that hasn’t been addressed for over five to six years is the absence of a local commercial league in the mold of the now defunct CBF, CBL or MICAA. The painful lessons of the past where the previous leagues and ballclubs couldn’t last will have to be re-learned, assessed and fixed. The business aspect has always been the main problem but with the right approach and out-of-the-box thinking, a commercial league can and will survive.

Lastly, and maybe more importantly, local basketball needs to be refreshed and updated with the latest developments in the sport from a training and technical perspective. We can no longer beat the Manila teams in school-based leagues because they’ve gotten so much better than us. We have the same talent and skills as those in Manila but they play the game in a more basic and fundamental manner. Manila has pulled away from the rest of the country in terms of development. It is thus no longer a surprise why we haven’t produced another top-level professional player after Dondon Hontiveros.

In the end, 2009 will still turn out to be a good one for Cebu Basketball, but we can’t be complacent as so much more needs to be done if we are to catch up and get back to where we were before.

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 Time-out: Happy “Three Kings” to all! You can reach me at [email protected]. – THE FREEMAN