Team Pilipinas seeks redemption vs Iran
Team Pilipinas coach Yeng Guiao wants a taller but quicker line-up as the host country seeks redemption against Iran in its second game of the fifth window of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Asian Qualifiers tonight at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
With now their back against the wall after losing to Kazakhstan (88-92) last Friday, Guiao revealed that San Miguel Beer’s sweet-shooting forward Arwind Santos is also included in the 12-man roster of their 7:30 p.m. match up against the Iranians.
“Actually there are four. Christian (Standhardinger), Troy (Rosario), Arwind (Santos) and Jayson (Castro). But I won’t tell you who will be replaced,” said Guiao in Filipino, who already activated the 6’8 mobile Christian Standhardinger in the game against Iran replacing Stanley Pringle as naturalized player.
Pringle notched 29 points against Kazakhstan, but it didn’t convince Guiao to change his early decision of utilizing the 2017 rookie top overall pick in the Iran game.
Guiao though doesn’t only like to have ‘bigs’ in his team, but he likes quicker big men.
“Against Kazakhstan, we have problems on the quickness of our bigs,” he explained. “So we want our big men to be more quicker this time. There are a lot of big guys internationally. But if you are just going to be big for the sake of being big, that’s not going to be enough.”
“You have to be big, skilled, quick and strong in our game against Iran.”
Earlier, Guiao announced the inclusion of Standhardinger, the 6’4 Troy Rosario and veteran national playmaker Jayson Castro, who is expected to fill in the gap left by Pringle at the point guard position. Then, Santos joined them.
At 5-4 win-loss record, he added the importance of the game against Iran is not only that they wanted to avenger their 73-81 setback against the Iranians in their first meeting in Tehran, but they need to tie them up in the second place of Group F.
Philippines is also tied with Japan in third place with similar 5-4 record, while Iran is presently holding a 6-3 win-loss record after losing to Australia (47-76) last Friday in Melbourne.
“Well that’s getting back of our objective to make it to the World Cup. It is very important to win that game because it is going to help us tie with Iran in the second place after they lost to Australia,” Guiao added. “So even we lost to Kazakhstan, we can redeem ourselves by winning against Iran.”
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