Goorjian remembers Jacobs

The Dongguan New Century Leopards were the first team to test Smart-Gilas in the Invitational Basketball Challenge at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium last night with American coach Brian Goorjian crossing swords with Serbian Rajko Toroman.

Goorjian, 57, played for Pepperdine University, the same Malibu school where Ricardo Brown saw action. In 1977, he began a long playing career as an import in Australia and eight years later, became a coach after hanging up his sneakers. Goorjian went on to capture six National Basketball League championships. He piloted the Australian national squad, called the Boomers, to ninth place at the 2004 Athens Olympics and seventh at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Last year, Goorjian moved to China where he was designated assistant coach of the national team. He is rumored to be next in line as China’s coach with the increasing disenchantment over Guo Shiqiang’s recent showing. It’s not the first time Goorjian is involved with an Asian national team. In 1997 and 2001, he was hired as a consultant with the Japanese squad.

Three weeks ago, Goorjian took over the reins of the Dongguan club in the Chinese Basketball Association. Goorjian previously handled the Leopards junior team which he steered to the National Youth League title.

“There are no Chinese national players in our team,” said Goorjian. “That’s because the national team is now in training. We brought in two Americans. I don’t really know too much about them. One of them is Kevin Kruger of UNLV (University of Nevada at Las Vegas). We’ll be working together for the first time in the Manila tournament.”

Kruger, 27, is a 6-2, 185-pound sharpshooter whose father Lon is the UNLV coach. He earned a degree in justice studies at Arizona State then finished his NCAA eligibility by playing a year at Las Vegas for his father. In three seasons at Arizona State, Kruger hit .812 from the line and .376 from beyond the three-point arc. Last year, Kruger averaged 18 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists for the Utah Flash in the NBA D-League. His stroke was nearly impeccable from the stripe, shooting .918.

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Dongguan’s other import is 6-10, 245-pound Ron Allen of the University of Cincinnati, the school that produced former PBA imports Art Long, Ryan Fletcher, Herb Jones, Pete Mickael and John Williamson.

Allen played at Artesia High School where Talk ‘N’ Text’s Ryan Reyes and NBA cager Jason Kapono also had a tour of duty.

During the 2004-05 season, Allen was forced to leave Xavier University after the school closed down in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He relocated to Cincinnati but never made a positive impact, averaging only two points in 33 games compared to 4.9 points during his abbreviated campaign at Xavier.

Like Kruger, Allen is deadly from the line. He shot .819 in 49 games for Anaheim in the NBA D-League two seasons back. Allen averaged 6.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 20.4 minutes as a part-time starter.

Dongguan was founded in 2003 and plays its home games at the 4,000-seat Lang Stadium. One of its former players was 7-1 Shan Tao who at 40, still played for the Leopards last year. In Dongguan’s current roster are 7-3 Sun Zhe, 6-11 Zhang Kai (who’s only 18) and 6-10 Song Kang Ming.

Goorjian’s father Ed, 85, used to be Ron Jacobs’ assistant at Loyola Marymount University in 1979-80. When Jacobs left the campus to move to Manila, Ed was named his successor.

“Our family knows coach Ron very well,” said Goorjian. “When Ron coached at El Camino junior college, my father coached in high school. They knew each other well. So that when coach Ron got the Loyola job, he brought in my father as his assistant.”

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Goorjian’s brother Greg played at Arizona State where Jacobs’ best friend Paul Howard was an assistant coach. He was surprised to learn that Howard often visits Jacobs in Manila and helps out the San Miguel and Ginebra teams. Goorjian was also surprised to find out that another Arizona State star Alton Lister is in town working as a San Miguel coaching consultant.

Goorjian is on his fourth visit to Manila.

“I’ve observed Philippine basketball for a long time,” he said. “It’s gone from one extreme to another. On one end, you’ve enlisted your best players from the PBA and gotten them to play for the country with not much success. It’s not like in the NBA where you can just pull out players and their talent is enough to make the team competitive. On the other end, you’ve gone strictly with players not in the PBA. They’re not the best players in the country but I understand it’s a way to put together a strong team under a good coach. Let’s see if it works.”

Another coach displaying his wares in the Invitationals is Mario Palma, a Portuguese who’s calling the shots for Jordan. His biggest achievement was leading Jordan to third place in the last FIBA-Asia Championships, earning a ticket to the World Championships in Turkey this year.

Like Goorjian, Palma has coached twice in the Olympics – in 2000 and 2004. Toroman himself is an Olympic veteran – he coached Iran at the 2008 Beijing Games.