Couch potato heaven

Hey, guys, sorry if I keep writing about basketball. But the golden season’s ripening, and hooray, it promises to last forever.

Of course I’ve long realized I’ll never make it to the NBA. As a player, that is. Well, neither will any Filipino in the next five years, maybe even 10. Much as there’s a lot of local and Fil-Am talent, we see no one on the horizon who can crack an NBA training camp soon.

Oh, there was talk a few years back that Johnny Abarrientos might get a tryout call, but I say that was nearly all bull. Johnny A. was special at his peak, but now he has to fight for minutes in a souped-up Ginebra squad. Besides, he’s just too small for the NBA. If there was someone who could’ve had a chance, it might have been Alvin Patrimonio with his A game. Even then, as a post-up, 6’3" forward, "The Captain" would’ve needed another five inches to land with the Atlanta Hawks.

Willie Miller, when he’s not fooling around, I used to think would be our best bet for the global sunrise game (and industry). He’s got the smarts, the moves, the quickness, and some of the shots. But again, he’s too small, and has been so used to playing the two-guard spot reserved for players several inches and pounds bigger. And I don’t see him doing an Iverson or even a Ben Gordon on the NBA floor.

Maybe we should look at the high school and college players emerging from all over our archipelagic woodwork. AdMU’s junior standout Mike Gamboa has the savvy, but can’t grow anymore; he’d be diminutive even for the UAAP seniors. Pong Escobal of the champion Red Lions promises to be a great PBA star someday. But at 6’1" and 20 years old, he’ll remain undersized for foreign pro hoops. Ex-Atenean Japeth Aguilar, at 6’9", is trying his size with a US NCAA team. Here’s hoping he can beef up in the next few years to even get a chance on NBA draft night, well into the future.

Very likely, it’ll be guys like Kelly Williams and Anthony Washington, Fil-Am cagers now in the PBA, who’ll eventually get a chance to join an NBA squad. Somewhere out there in Mainland USA, somone with Pinoy blood – with four to five inches up on Mark Caguioa but just as deadly and spitfirish – may now be draining the hoops while still in primary grade, at 12 already a six-footer with a passion for the game. Or maybe the kid’s growing up in one of our islands, mutating from a combination of sugarcane and oil spill legacy on some beach front. His name: Miguel Jordan Camiguin. Yes, give him a decade and he’ll lead us crazed fans to the promised land.

Meanwhile, congrats to the UST Growling Tigers. On paper, they were the stronger team, with more shooters and position balance, heftier and more mature, than the AdMU Blue Eagles. Some friends say Pido Jarencio also outcoached Norman Black. Well... This Monday-morning miron might concede that Black did bench JC Intal too long in the early going of Game 2, then learned his lesson and kept "The Rocket" on the floor for much of Game 3. But he also kept plugging with Clifford Arao, whose fingers can only slice through butter on some nights, it seems.

A pity Macky Escalona’s game-of-his-life was for naught, no thanks to a couple of instances when the usually reliable Chris Tiu failed to box out on board play. Then again, Chris may have suffered from too much bench time in that decisive set-to. Still and all, I say give Norman at least another chance – to see if he can teach his big frontline better post-up moves.

Otherwise, our beloved Eagles might not even get to the Final Four next year. Jai Reyes and Yuri Escueta are both undersized, while Ken Barracoso has hardly developed since his junior MVP days. Eric Salamat may improve, but he won’t be enough to provide the points for AdMU. We need big shooters, the way UST packed its roster with the likes of Duncil, Espiritu, Evangelista, Ababou and Jervy Cruz.

In any case, the Glowing Goldies (oops, that was in my time) certainly deserved the UAAP title with their Cinderella finish, accomplished as it was with divine intervention and then some, including a Totus Tuus nod for the Pontifical U from no less than the Pontiff himself.

Now, barring any upsets, let’s see if the Tigers can overcome the Lions in the Final Four of the current Collegiate Champions League. Pope Benedict vs. the Benedictines. Oughta be a classic war of the rosaries, while the Jesuits and the, uh, Christians wait on the other bracket end.

This tourney faces a rosy future despite the odds, what with the natural inclination for college teams to devote their all to their own league play. But our version of March Madness, played in October, can draw more focus and attention once we all get the hang of it, knockout format and all.

I don’t see the Sweet 16 rankings expanding to 32 teams anytime soon, but the prize of being the national collegiate champion ought to gain more deference and respect. So that coaches stay put, and perhaps the PBA can allow an exemption of a few games played in another league for graduating stars who’ve recently been drafted into the pro ranks. That way, seeded teams enter the last collegiate competition with rosters intact.

Those who say we should give up on basketball sound like hardcore leftists inclined to pounce on every glass they see as half-full, and who also tend to throw out the baby with whatever’s in that glass.

Basketball’s here to say. All we need is to acknowledge that we’ll be competitive only in our part of Asia, and should leave global tourneys to the yet under-performing Chinese. As has been explained in the past, simplicity of logistics accounts for early basketball training. Any ball and any kind of hoop, even a flowerpot holder tacked on to a coconut tree, and voila! There’s your potential Miguel Jordan Camiguin.

Football needs a large field, so many other players, spiked shoes and all that gear. Ditto with baseball in terms of equipment. Volleyball’s demands are much less, which is why we see it getting more playtime. Height’s a factor there, too, however. With badminton, we have more potential.

But to expect Pinoys to chuck basketball for our other B sports where we’re world beaters – boxing, billiards, bowling, ballroom dancing –is akin to saying that the NPA is right to attack cell sites because the government remains hopeless.

When one attends a collegiate championship game at the Big Dome, he joins a grand tradition with all the fervor and hoopla, opposing colors and drum beats, yells and cheers and balloons and clappers and all sorts of paraphernalia that spell passion. It’s an experience not to be missed. For now it’s a Manila-centric phenom all right, but the 15,000 or so live attendees gain exponential numbers with TV spectators from Calamba to California.

And sure, the sourpusses will cry that it’s elitist. Only a few college teams are. The Doves et al. from Parañaque to Pagadian compete with the Catholic private-school athletes, and it’s as much fun as it’s democratic. Yeah, it’s Amboy, too, but the ever-increasing passion is homegrown.

At the nth Bedan Night victory celebration at My Brother’s Moustache in QC a couple of Fridays ago, the usual sea of red, some 300 partying Bedistas, couldn’t care less over any half-empty glass or alleged colonial carryovers. The champs were cheered onstage, with proprietor Boy Vinzons, emcee Archie Ventosa, vintage cheerleaders Bong Obligacion and Gabriel Castillo, and coaching staff Jun Roque. Taking their turns, too, were team manager Mike Advani, QC Vice Mayor Herbert "Bistek" Bautista, Caloocan Mayor Rico Echeverri who pledged a drum-and-bugle corps for title-retention efforts, and singers Haji Alejandro, Michelle de Guzman, and Bob Mondejar & Friends.

Bedistas all and sundry – and we’re sure the occasion was played up overseas through the Internet. When we went through some of the old cheers (San Beda having started that NCAA tradition) that have been struck out inexplicably from our repertoire, the younger generation couldn’t help but be bemused over the passion that preceded them. (Minimini haha, minimini hoho ... Polly wolly wanna, polly wolly woo... Stand on the grandstand, beat on the tin can... Azu, ima, alaka laka yebo yebo rah!...)

Now we want them back, us real-life seniors. They’re part of that continuum of tradition that threads through our early memories and bonding agents, as we grew up to be Filipino. Make that basketball-crazy Filipinos.

With the PBA on its All-Filipino (cum All-Fil-Am) edition, and with Solar Entertainment introducing "B" TV as an exclusive basketball channel, where everyone can catch the Collegiate Champs tourney, old games leading to the NCAA and UAAP crowns, NBA training routines and pre-season games in Europe, and by this week, maybe my darling Cavs in a pre-season opener against those darned Celtics – my goodness, never has a Pinoy couch potato been this blessed. Come October’s end, the NBA regular season unfurls. Ah, hoops heaven!

Now if only Pilipinas Basketball or whatever finally gets its act together, before it becomes a headache for Manny Pangilinan. This miron shudders to recall that it was Joey Lina, as senator, who pushed for that dubious law guaranteeing players’ rights on any court unless another sandlot elsewhere is made available to them. Something like that, right? Now that wasn’t cricket. Nor is it good and entertaining basketball