For the longest time, Filipino pundits have long held that the only way to reestablish our dominance in the Asian basketball scene is through the use of PBA players, widely acknowledged as the best players in the land.
But recent debacles in Asian tournaments have left basketball fanatics shellshocked as Middle East Asian teams who weren't even in the basketball scene a decade ago dispatched the Philippine pros easily.
Enter Rajko Toroman, a Serbian coach who earned international acclaim by bringing Iran's once laughable basketball team into the forefront of Asian basketball. The Iranians, under Toroman's 5 year plan, went from whipping boys to Olympic qualifiers, beating traditional giants like China, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.
Much hullaballoo was raised over Toroman's hiring, most coming from Filipino coaches who said that the Serbian coach would not make a difference, that the European technique would not catapult the RP team into the limelight once again, that our Asian opponents' height and heft were too much, that we did not have enough Fil-Ams schooled in the NBA, that the collegiate stars who chose to play for Smart Gilas would have been role players in the PBA and that they were of no conzequence to the league...And so Toroman, former collegiate skippers Chris Tiu, JV Casio, Mark Barroca, Jason Ballesteros, Dylan Ababou and Mac Baracael said "screw you" to the PBA and defeated a Jordanian team that proved to be too much of a Goliath for PBA pros.
Tiu scored 17 points, the Big B's (Ballesteros, Barroca and Baracael) scored 12points each while Casio and former Powerade slotman Japhet Aguilar scored 9points each as they defeated the Jordanians with 4 American imports by the score of 85-82.
Call me crazy but I'll take this bunch of plucky, gritty, hardworking amateurs over bigheaded, me-first millionaires of the PBA. They may be the best players in the land but Smart-Gilas has proven that they are the best team in the land.
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