Sinag cagers rip Cambodians in opener

JAKARTA – Ranged against lowly Cambodia, Sinag Pilipinas hardly flexed its muscle to fashion out a 127-68 rout at the start of the 26th Southeast Asian Games men’s basketball competition at the BritAma Arena in the Indon capital’s opulent Kedapa Galing area yesterday.

Kiefer Ravena top scored with 17 points with six other Phl players putting in double-digit outputs as the Nationals tore the Cambodians apart, as expected, to open their bid for a ninth straight SEAG championship.

“We had to work on our defense before we got our offense going, but I’m pretty satisfied,” said Sinag Phl coach Norman Black.

Just bracing up for tougher challenge ahead, the Nationals tried to strike a balance of playing a good game while not showing that much for the scouts of their major rivals.

Black, a multi-titled coach who called the shots for the Phl team that placed fourth in the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games, promised though that they will do whatever it takes to win the championship.

Curiously, FIBA-Asia posed the Philippines its first challenge here, questioning the eligibility of Fil-foreign players Chris Ellis and Cliff Hodge during the team managers meeting Sunday. FIBA-Asia did even as the SEA Olympic body had previously given its nod on the two players.

The same group caused Marcio Lassiter and Chris Lutz some trouble in the recent FIBA Asia championship in Wuhan, China.

Eventually cleared, Ellis and Hodge had their contributions as the Nationals got a good warm-up versus the Cambodians who showed up with couples of their own foreign-born and foreign-trained national players.

Cambodian coach Koleday Abay Omi said they suffered a big blow even before leaving their country with their top center figuring in a vehicular mishap.

The Cambodians, led by sweet-shooting forwards Mith Pek and Oeun Sophoeun, showed some semblance of a fight in the early goings but broke down as they faced the Nationals’ pressing defense.

“It’s our first game and we didn’t really know much about Cambodia. We found out immediately that they have three good players. They played competitively in the first half,” said Black.

At 13-all with four minutes into the game, the Nationals started to apply the press, and they sparked a breakaway that had them leading by as many as 59 points in the second half.

Pressing on defense and running the breaks on the other end, the Nationals seized control, 35-20, at the end of the first quarter.

Ravena paced Sinag Phl with 17 points on a perfect goal shooting with RR Garcia, Garvo Lanete, Nicolas Salva, Elis, Dave Marcelo and Ray Parks adding at least 10 points each.

Seven-foot center Greg Slaughter logged only five points and four rebounds, being the main focus of Cambodia’s defense.

Emmanuel Monfort, Parks, Slaughter, Salva and Ravena started against Cambodia. Black is expected to play another starting unit versus Vietnam at 3 p.m. today.

Earlier in the day, Thailand clobbered Vietnam, 85-54.