Myanmar News Links: Coach Jong drops stars

Coach Jong drops stars

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Category: Sports

Written by Joel Orellana / Reporter

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HEAD Coach Jong Uichico decided to drop incoming pros Raymund Almazan, Terrence Romeo and RR Garcia and De La Salle center Arnold van Opstal from the national men's basketball pool for the Myanmar 27th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games next month.

Almazan, Romeo and Garcia obviously waived their chance of donning the national colors after the Philippine Basketball Association teams that tabbed them in last Sunday's Rookie Draft turned down Uichico by not formally replying to his request on the three players' status.

Van Opstal, on the other hand, has to attend to his academics at De La Salle or lose his eligibility for next year's University Athletic Association of the Philippines.

With the four out, Uichico is left with 13 players on the pool, namely, Kevin Alas, Jake Pascual, Ronald Pascual, Garvo Lanete, Matt Ganuelas, Kiefer Ravena, Bobby Ray Parks, Kevin Ferrer, Roy Sumang, Prince Caperal, Jericho Cruz, Mark Belo and naturalized player Marcus Douthit. Sumang has yet to attend practice because of a foot injury.

Only one of them will be dropped when Uichico submits his final roster to the Philippines SEA Games Task Force, which set a Wednesday deadline for the final lineup.

The women's basketball team's fate, meanwhile, remains in the balance after the task force deferred for Friday deciding on the squad called the Discovery Perlas Pilipinas. The nationals failed to achieve a Level I slot in the recent Fiba Asia Women's Championship in Bangkok after finishing third in the Level II bracket.

The task force also dropped men's football—under-23 team—from the delegation although it was surprised to learn that the Myanmar organizers have bracketed the Philippines in Group A together with defending champion Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Lao PDR and Brunei.

"We informed them [Myanmar] earlier that we won't be sending a men's football team. We anticipate this kind of problem to arise dahil na din sa dami ng process nila na mga visa," Philippine chief of mission Jeff Tamayo told the BusinessMirror on Wednesday.

The Philippines, however, will send the Malditas, the women's football team, who are with host Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia in Group A.