Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Bring it on, Philippines

SINGAPORE — The gold medal dream begins for the national men’s basketball team at the 28th South-east Asian Games in June, but first, the cagers will need to get past their first test against their regional rivals this week.

Singapore men’s basketball team during training last week. The national coach will be looking to test his crop of younger players at SEABA. Photo: Jason Quah

Singapore men’s basketball team during training last week. The national coach will be looking to test his crop of younger players at SEABA. Photo: Jason Quah

SINGAPORE — The gold medal dream begins for the national men’s basketball team at the 28th South-east Asian Games in June, but first, the cagers will need to get past their first test against their regional rivals this week.

Singapore will host South-east Asian teams Brunei, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia and the Philippines at the 11th South-east Asian Basketball Association (SEABA) Championship for Men held at the OCBC Arena from yesterday to Friday, and the defending champions Philippines will be aiming to clinch a second consecutive title.

National captain Desmond Oh and his 15-strong squad will be keeping a watchful eye on the Filipinos, the seven-time SEABA champions who will looking for a confidence boost ahead of their title defence at the SEA Games in less than two months’ time. Regarded as a basketball giant in South-east Asia, the Philippines national basketball team have been unstoppable in the biennial event, winning 16 gold medals — they have only relinquished the title once in 1989 when they were beaten by Malaysia — since the first SEA Games was hosted in Kuala Lumpur in 1977.

This week’s SEABA championship will see the Filipino roster boosted by the likes of naturalised player and veteran centre Marcus Douthit — the 2.08m-tall player helped Philippines qualify for last year’s FIBA Basketball World Cup — and a number of collegiate players competing in the Philippines and United States, including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reigning league MVP Earl Scottie Thompson.

Veteran player Wong Wei Long is looking forward to a rematch against the Filipinos after a narrow 88-75 loss to the regional kingpins at the 2013 Games in Myanmar. “I always feel that we are the underdog, and I remember about nine years ago, when I joined the national team, we would lose to Philippines by 60 points at SEABA,” said the 26-year-old in an interview at the Singapore Basketball Centre last week. “It was very demoralising then for me. But with the Singapore Slingers (ASEAN Basketball League team), individual skills have gotten better and we gel better as a team. We will put everything on the court and we’ll see the results when the competition is over.”

Added Russel Low, 21, one of the tallest players on the team at 1.97m: “Throughout the years, we were overlooked and always the underdogs. People didn’t look at us as a threat, but we are getting better. All these doubters motivate us and bring us together in our aim to win.”

Captain Oh, 29, wants to get his hands on the coveted gold in what could be his final SEA Games appearance with the national team, as he told TODAY: “SEABA will show us where we stand among the South-east Asian countries. We have waited two years to play Philippines again. In 2013, we didn’t handle the ball well and were too nervous. But we are ready to go now, and we want to prove to Singaporeans that we can do it.”

The national men’s basketball team kicked off their SEABA campaign last night with a 113-21 victory over Laos, and will take on Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines from today till Friday. Post-SEABA, they will travel to Australia and the Philippines for training and competition camps in their final stretch of preparations for the Games’ basketball competition, which will be held at the OCBC Arena from June 9 to 15.

National head coach Neo Beng Siang, who guided the team to a bronze at the 2013 SEA Games — a first for the Republic in 34 years —will also be looking to test his crop of younger players at SEABA. Toh Qing Huang, Kelvin Lim, Leon Kwek and John Ng were some of the young cagers recruited into the 15-strong squad for the Games.

“They have a lot of potential, and it’s not only about building for the SEA Games, but for the future of local basketball,” said former national player Neo, who competed in the SEA Games in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1999. This couple of years, we have built a good team chemistry and if they stick to the plan, I can confident they will perform well. A lot of people don’t believe that we can beat Philippines. It will be tough, but nothing is impossible. If they play without fear, they can make things happen.”

Other results yesterday: Brunei 43 Malaysia 81, Indonesia 36 Philippines 92.

Today’s SEABA fixtures:

Laos v Philippines (4pm), Malaysia v Indonesia (6pm), Brunei v Singapore (8pm)

Admission to the SEABA Championship at OCBC Arena is free

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.