Angola begs off from Fiesta Cup

The Philippine Basketball Association is now looking to invite either the Melbourne Tigers, the New Zealand national team or any professional club team from South America as the Athens Olympics-bound Angolan squad declined the league’s invitation to be one of the two guest teams in the coming Fiesta Conference.

Officials of the Angolan team said they may already be in Athens acclimatizing with its weather as the PBA transition tourney welcomes the participation of its guest squads starting in the quarterfinal round by the second week of June.

Lebanon, which had had a stint in the last World Basketball Championship in Indianapolis, Indiana, has been seeded as one of the two guest teams.

The tournament starts Feb. 22 at the Araneta Coliseum with the 10 PBA ball clubs playing two-round robins in the first phase of the elims. The top two teams automatically advance to the quarterfinals while the eight others left figure in the match-up knockout phase of the elims.

With Angola out, PBA operations manager Rickie Santos said they’re now about to send correspondences to the Melbourne Tigers and the New Zealand squad, and at the time seek contacts with pro clubs in Canada, Venezuela, Brazil or Puerto Rico.

"We’ll be looking for teams interested to come over here. Tapos doon kami pipili kung sino ang paglalaruin namin," said Santos.

The Melbourne Tigers, a tough contender in the National Basketball League in Australia, and the Simon Fraser University team in Canada expressed interest to play in the PBA Invitational Cup last year but the league opted to bring in Novi Sad-Yugoslavia, Yonsei University of South Korea and Jilin Yi Qi of China which ironically all turned out to be duds.

Alaska Milk and Coca-Cola figured in an all-Filipino finals with the former going on to win the crown.

PBA commissioner Noli Eala has said they will try to make it sure this time that only tough-caliber teams would come in.

"This is going to be a celebration of sorts. More than just a transition tournament, this is going to be a red-carpet conference that will usher in a new era in the league. It’s only fitting that formidable and appealing guest teams compete with our PBA squads," said the league commissioner.

"When the term transition conference cropped up, a lot of people felt that this was something that was merely going to be a filler while we wait for the new era to begin. This Fiesta Conference will shatter that perception," he added.

The Melbourne Tigers of legendary coach Lindsay Gaze came over here two years ago and played the then Bangkok Asiad-bound RP team in a pair of tune-up games. The Tigers won the first game then the Nationals of coach Jong Uichico evened things up in the second game.

Meanwhile, ABC 5 has put up a partial list of anchormen and game analysts for its coverage of the PBA games in the coming season.

The STAR columnist Joaquin Henson led the list that includes fellow veteran analysts Norman Black and TJ Manotoc and anchors Ed Piczon, Mico Halili and Hans Montenegro.

Patricia Bermudez has been tapped as courtside reporter. ABC is screening more talents to fill in two more slots for the job, according to production director Siena Olaso.

Olaso also said they’re in search of a comedian to do light reports.