SBP sends Fiba Asia hosting bid

MANILA, Philippines—The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas is going all out to gain homecourt advantage in the 2013 Fiba Asia Championship.

SBP executive director Renauld Barrios said the national cage body will submit to Fiba Friday its official bid to host the continental qualifier for the world championship set in 2014.

Barrios said the formal application to host on the final day of submission for bids comes with a cover letter signed by SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan stressing the country’s willingness to bring Asia’s most prestigious tourney to Manila.

China, which played host to the recently concluded Fiba Asia Championship in Wuhan, China, bagged the gold medal and the lone continental ticket to next year’s London Olympics.

The Philippines hopes to exploit the hometown support in the tournament which stakes three slots to the 24-nation 2014 Fiba World Championship set to be staged in six cities in Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona.

Barrios said they are working on a comprehensive cover letter that will provide a bird’s eyeview on the proposed hosting and supplement the bidding form provided by Fiba Asia.

The form is a simple checklist of forthcoming Fiba Asia tournaments a bidding country wants to host.

“We’ll definitely go for it,” said Barrios. “The attached letter will indicate how super serious we are to host it.”

The SBP made a bid for Manila to host this year’s Asian championship, but lost out to Lebanon.

Unimpressed with Beirut’s hosting of the Stankovic Cup last year, Fiba moved the Asian championship to Wuhan.

Besides the Philippines, Lebanon and China are also reportedly interested in the world qualifier.

Barrios said the SBP could stage the Asian championship in two venues—the Smart Araneta Coliseum and the world-class stadium being built at the Mall Of Asia in Pasay City.

“We have two good venues which can meet Fiba standards,” said Barrios.

“And we have experienced personnel who could organize an event as big as the Fiba Asia Championship.”

Barrios said they would deploy the same manpower when SBP successfully staged the Fiba Asia Champions Cup at the Philsports Arena four months ago.

Smart Gilas Pilipinas locks down on Syria, faces Chinese Taipei

WUHAN, China—Couldn’t get its offense going, Smart Gilas Pilipinas found redemption on the other side of the floor.

Smart Gilas Pilipinas held Syria without a field goal for over six minutes with a smothering full-court pressure and to prevail, 75-52, Wednesday night in the Fiba Asia Championship.

The Nationals unloaded 16 points during the Syrian meltdown in the fourth quarter as they notched a third straight victory in the second round and a 4-1 record at the end of the group stages.

Ranidel De Ocampo’s follow-up dunk off a wayward Jimmy Alapag triple ignited the scoring outburst at the beginning of the fourth while Marcio Lassiter and Chris Tiu responded with jumpers and penetrations, opening a wide 65-45 gap.

When center Eder Georges finally had that much-awaited bucket with 3:36 to play, the Syrians were already staring at the door with their fourth setback in five games sending them to the consolation round.

“Today’s an ugly win for us. We didn’t come out the way we expected. Good thing we picked up in the second half,” said Lassiter.

China’s scintillating 84-58 rout of Japan late Wednesday night guaranteed Smart Gilas the No.2 seeding in Group F and a quarterfinal clash against Chinese Taipei, No.3 in Group E.

The Chinese, fired up by a rowdy sellout crowd, swept the group stages and booked a fight-off with Lebanon in the quarters while the Japanese will grind it out with the Koreans in other knockout pairing.

The Nationals recovered from a forgettable first half as they began to hit their shots from the outside.

Three-pointers by De Ocampo and JV Casio and Marcus Douthit’s curl at the low blocks put Smart Gilas ahead, 42-41, after falling behind by as many as 11.

Douthit was assessed a five-second violation on the freethrow line and eventually got a technical for complaining, a call which peeved coach Rajko Toroman and the Smart Gilas bench.

Hasem Al Saman hit the technical freebies on the other end and the Syrians got their last taste of the lead as Smart Gilas finished them off with a 33-7 tear spanning the third and fourth.

“They (Syrians) have the size and we missed a lot of easy layups at the start. We struggled offensively and they had several lucky shots,” said Toroman.

“The defense was good in the second half and things opened up for us,” added Toroman.

In a game that determined the top seeding in Group E, two-time champion Iran (5-0) walloped South Korea (4-1), 79-62, to remain unbeaten entering the quarterfinals where the Iranians face Group F No. 4 Jordan.

The Jordanians (2-3) wrapped up the second round with a 94-80 triumph over United Arab Emirates (0-5) while Chinese Taipei (3-2) and Lebanon (2-3) will go to the knockout stage with confidence-building victories over Malaysia (1-4), 109-62, and Uzbekistan (0-5), 101-53, in Group E.

Meanwhile, Fiba Asia dumped Jordan’s protest against Smart Gilas. The Jordanians put the match won by the Filipinos, 72-64, under protest after organizers allowed Marcio Lassiter and Chris Lutz to play despite initially scratching them from the starter’s list.

Lassiter and Lutz were rendered ineligible by Fiba Asia officials and didn’t see action in the opening round before Fiba intervened and reinstated both players against Jordan.

The Asian championship, which stakes a continental berth to the London Olympics next year, takes a break Thursday before going full gear in the knockout stage come Friday.

Nothing seemed to go right for Smart Gilas in the second period after the Syrians overhauled a six point deficit and scored 21 points for a 32-23 halftime lead.

Japeth Aguilar’s alley-oop dunk off Mac Baracael’s feed broke a four-minute drought but guards Wael Jlilati and Vatche Nalbandian’s shooting hurt the Nationals’ cause.

Nalbandian canned two three-pointers and Jlilati had six points from the perimeter as the Syrians built a double-digit spread on Smart Gilas’ miscues.

Fiba Asia: Smart Gilas repulses Jordan in the 2nd round

MANILA, Philippines—Smart Gilas Pilipinas showed no distraction amid eligibility issues surrounding vital cogs Marcio Lassiter and Chris Lutz as it pulled off a 72-64 stunner over Jordan Monday in the 2011 Fiba Asia championships in Wuhan, China.

The Nationals stirred the match in their favor in the second half, and held steady down the stretch— missing just one of its last eight attempts from the line—en route to their first victory in the second round of the competition.

Naturalized center Marcus Douthit put on a behemoth effort, despite a suffering a mild left-ankle sprain in the third period, as he scored 19 points and snared 15 rebounds.

Despite getting the go signal to play by Fiba’s general secretary Patrick Baumann also Monday, miscommunication with Fiba Asia nearly kept Lassiter and Lutz from playing their maiden game.

But the kinks were ironed out in time as both of the players were able to suit up, even as the 24-year-old Lassiter provided much-needed spark of the Nationals with 14 points.

Gilas, which plays Japan Tuesday, was clutching a precarious eight-point advantage—after trailing by as many as 15 points—midway in the payoff period when the stubborn Jordan, paced by star guard Sam Dahgles, made it a one-possession game.

Dahgles finished with 18 points highlighted by clutch baskets, while Jordan’s naturalized center Rasheim Wright, whose triple attempt could have given them a crucial lead in the last two minutes, added 16 points.

Jordan, one of the top teams in Asia, raced to a 17-2 lead in the first quarter but the Philippines, buoyed by the presence of Lassiter, slowly chipped the lead down.

At stake for the champion of the tournament is an outright berth to the 2012 London Olympics.

SCORES:

Philippines, 72— Douthit, 19; Lassiter, 14; Alapag, 11; Tiu, 9; Williams, 6; De Ocampo, 4; Lutz, 4; Casio, 3; Taulava, 2; Barroca, 0; Aguilar, 0; Baracael 0.

Jordan, 64— Daghles, 18; Wright, 16; Z. Abbas, 10; Abuqoura, 7; I. Abbas, 6; Al-Sous, 5; Zaghab, 2; Hussein, 0.

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Fiba Asia

By Celest R. Flores
INQUIRER.net

7:06 pm | Monday, September 19th, 2011