Manila Chooks bunched with top seed

MANILA, Philippines — The Manila Chooks TM squad of Joshua Munzon, Alvin Pasaol, Troy Rike and Santi Santillan will tackle an old, familiar foe in top seed Liman in the 2020 FIBA 3x3 Doha World Tour Masters, which unfolds tomorrow in Doha, Qatar.

The Filipinos and Liman’s Stefan Stojacic, Stefan Kojic, Mihailo Vasic, and Aleksandar Ratkov were grouped with Lusail squad Greek Vasileiadis Kostantinos, Senegalese Ousseynou Mbow and homegrown talents Qatari Mame Ndour and Hamza Radi in Pool A.

Manila clashes with Liman, an urban neighborhood in the city of Novi Sad in Serbia, at 11:55 p.m. tomorrow (Philippine time) and Luseil at 1:35 a.m. Saturday.

The top two teams will advance to the knockout quarterfinals against the top two from Pool C composed of New York Harlem, Lausanne, Switzerland and Lithuania’s Utena.

“It’s definitely going to be a test for us to square against those European teams but you know I think we’re ready mentally, physically,” said Munzon. “I think we’re ready as we can be and we’ll see how things go. I am confident with my team.”

Munzon, then playing for Pasig Chooks and teammates Taylor Statham, Nikola Pavlovic, and Angelo Tsagarakis, shocked Liman, 19-16, in the group phase of this same tilt last year.

Pasaol and Santillan, then with Balanga Chooks with Karl Dehesa and Travis Franklin, also faced Liman but lost, 9-21, in the quarterfinals in this level 10 tournament staking $40,000 (P2 million) to the champion.

The Filipinos, who all tested negative for the COVID-19 virus, held its first practice yesterday since arriving early Monday.