FIBA Asia: Rack 'em up

Tenorio's brilliant dribbling forays
sets the tone early for Pilipinas

With this evening's win over defending champions Lebanon, Team Pilipinas should make the crossover round with expected (with all due respect of course) victories over Uzbekistan and Macau (countries that are still developing their basketball programs). Not to say that our guys should go on auto-pilot or even field in their little used players, but we should take advantage of whatever rest we could afford our   top guns.

Marcus Douthit redeemed himself from yesterday's frustrating episode versus the young Chinese giants with a sterling 25 points, 21 rebounds effort despite early foul trouble (this is starting to become a trend now, one we simply cannot afford against elite teams). The locals chipped in big time, taking turns dismantling the disorganized Lebanese defense.

If there's anything to really nitpick on then it is our continued struggles from the outside. Gary David, Jeffrei Chan and Larry Fonacier have yet to burn the hoops with back-to-back triples, Gabe Norwood has gone back to his old, hesitant self and Ranidel de Ocampo is on the Gary David system-- just settling and jacking up (and missing) threes when he's outside the painted area.