More PBA cagers tested positive?

Whether more players or even team officials, coaches and support staff also get severe sanction from the league will be known any day now with the PNP Crime Laboratory set to release the results of the mandatory drug test undertaken by the Philippine Basketball Association.

A number of urine samples were brought to the PNP Crime Lab for confirmatory test after testing positive in the initial test conducted by the Department of Health.

But PBA officials didn’t rule out the possibility of these urine samples all turning out clean as what had happened in several cases in the league’s continuing random test.

PBA commissioner Noli Eala ordered the holding of the mandatory test on all players, team officials, coaches, support staff and even all other personnel in the Commissioner’s Office after five players in Asi Taulava, Dorian Peña, Jimwell Torion, Norman Gonzales and Alex Crisano flunked the random test.

Taulava and Peña, who tested positive for traces of marijuana, were suspended for two games while Torion, Gonzalez and Crisano, who tested positive for higher-grade substances, got indefinite suspension.

Meanwhile, elimination-round topnotcher Red Bull takes on Talk N Text while Barangay Ginebra, which made it past the elims via the backdoor, plays sister team Coca-Cola at the start of the Samsung PBA All-Filipino Cup quarterfinals next Wednesday at the Araneta Coliseum.

It’s FedEx versus Sta. Lucia Realty and Alaska Milk against San Miguel Beer in the second play date of the brief quarters which will determine the four teams clashing in the cross-over semifinals.

It is only a one-round-robin affair for each group, thus, each team plays only three games in the round. Two wins guarantee a team an outright playoff berth for the semis.

Red Bull dominated the eliminations with a 14-4 win-loss card but this doesn’t matter now with all teams starting from scratch.

San Miguel Beer carries an 11-6 mark while FedEx, Coca-Cola and Talk N Text all sport a 10-7 record going into final play date of the elims at the Philsports Arena today.

The Beermen and the Phone Pals square off at 5 p.m. then the Tigers and the Express slug it out at 7:30 p.m. in a pair of non-bearing matches.

After today’s games, the tourney takes a brief break to give way to the All-Star Festivities set Friday to Sunday at the Big Dome. The Crispa-Toyota reunion game ushers in the All-Star extravaganza Friday.