TnT faces acid test sans Ranidel, Kelly

MANILA, Philippines - With Talk n Text among those billed as pre-season favorites, coach Chot Reyes said his Tropang Texters have to work hard to live up to expectation considering the absence of top forward Ranidel de Ocampo.

“We won’t have Ranidel and we will lose Kelly Williams for three weeks. I don’t think we should be among the favorites,” said Reyes.

The five-time champion coach downplayed their chances and pointed to Alaska Milk, San Miguel Beer and Barangay as his top choices.

Among the PBA top officials, Alaska, San Miguel and Talk n Text are the favorites for the 36th PBA season opening Sunday at the Araneta Coliseum.

“We’re honored that there are those who are standing up and taking notice of what our guys are doing,” said Alaska coach Tim Cone.

“Usually, we’re pretty much under the radar. In any case, we’ve gotten the chance to the dance the last couple of the all-Filipinos but we haven’t gotten the girl. We’ll work to change that this time,” Cone added.

“Pre-season rankings won’t affect our preparation. I think it’s important to start strong due to the short format,” said Reyes.

De Ocampo, the best player in the 2009-2010 Fiesta Conference elimination phase, will be out in the coming all-Filipino as he underwent surgery to scrape bone spurs on his ankles.

Williams will be absent for at least three weeks late this year as he’s joining the Smart Gilas RP team in its Asian Games quest in Guangzhou, China late this year.

Talk n Text reacquired Ali Peek and Gilbert Lao, and tapped in free agent Rich Alvarez to fill in the slack in its frontcourt rotation.

The Texters also enlisted former Alaska player Larry Fonacier to take the spot left by Mark Cardona.

Holdovers from last year’s TnT rosters are Jimmy Alapag, Harvey Carey, Ryan Reyes, Jason Castro, Jared Dillinger, Mark Yee and Aaron Aban.

The Texters are among the pre-season favorites, considering their league best .653 (32 wins against 17 losses) performance last year.

San Miguel was second with .643 (36-20), followed by Derby Ace .641 (41-23), Alaska .629 (39-23), Ginebra .519 (27-25), Rain or Shine .412 (21-30), Coca-Cola .400 (16-24), Sta. Lucia .395 (15-23), Air21 .263 (10-28) and Barako .167 (6-30).

All-Filipino champion Derby Ace is expected to have a hard time defending its title with four starters (James Yap, Kerby Raymundo, Marc Pingris and Rafi Reavis) in injury list.

Confident and determined to come out strong is Alaska Milk, the Fiesta Conference titlist which is celebrating the 25th year of its existence in the pro league.

The Aces were to start a yearlong celebration with a grand reunion of all Alaska players at the Dusit Hotel in Makati last night.

Alaska has kept its lineup intact as the team seeks to keep its winning ways. The Aces got only two new players in Bonbon Custodio and rookie Elmer Espiritu.