RP five will get better, says coach

RP-Cebuana Lhuillier suffered an opening day loss to the San Miguel Beermen, 55-95, at the opening of the PBA’s Asian Invitationals at the Cuneta Astrodome last Sunday but head coach Aric del Rosario is unfazed.

"We can only get better as we progress, our objective in joining the tournament was for the national players to get the necessary experience of playing together and against tough opposition at that, as you know, we were only able to finalize this training pool recently because of certain circumstances," said del Rosario.

Even as the UAAP has already decided to allow their players only to play in the ABC and the SEA Games because of the on-going UAAP tournament, a decision that the RP coaching staff respects and accepts, and the PBA has made an appeal to the said schools to reconsider their decision, del Rosario has made adjustments in the team line-up and recruited new members of the pool.

There were players like Ranidel de Ocampo, Peter Jun Simon, Erwin Sotto, who were replaced as they were not attending practices anymore and in their lieu, del Rosario got players like Richie Melencio, Ricky Calimag, Gary David and a few others to join the pool while those UAAP players who are playing with their school teams remain as members of the pool and still attend practices, at least for some of them.

"It is from this line-up playing in the Asian Invitationals that we will form the team for the SEABA in Cebu next month, then for the ABC and the SEA Games, we will look at the entire pool from which to form those two teams, anyway they have permission from their schools to play in the two major Asian tournaments," explained del Rosario.

Looking ahead beyond the PBA Asian Invitationals, del Rosario believes he has enough material to defend successfully the SEABA crown and more so in the SEA Games where the UAAP players will be available already.

In the ABC, we just want to improve on the finish last time by the Philippines, a fifth place to seventh place may be realistic," said del Rosario of the team that is enjoying full support from sportsman patron Jean Henri Lhuillier.

"Nabigla lang yung mga bata sa PBA noong Linggo, at seryoso pa ang laro ng San Miguel, yun naman ang kailangan nilang ma-experience," concluded the 63-year-old coach who would like to make a glorious exit from basketball by winning the SEA Games championship for the country.

RP-Cebuana Lhuillier faces the Chinese team this Saturday at the Cuneta Astrodome.