Asi, Menk lead Beermen in ABL

MANILA, Philippines -  A pair of grizzled PBA veterans will try to deliver a championship for San Miguel Beer in the Asean Basketball League (ABL) this season as newly appointed head coach Leo Austria takes charge with a souped-up roster featuring imports Gabe Freeman and Brian Williams.

Asi Taulava, 39, and Eric Menk, 38, head the local cast for the Beermen who lost to the Indonesia Warriors in the ABL finals last campaign. “They’re in excellent shape, like they’re out to prove something,” said San Miguel director of sports Noli Eala. “Our goal is to win the title and they’ll play a major role.”

The Beermen begin their quest for their first-ever ABL crown against the Warriors in Jakarta on Jan. 11. They took a Christmas break from practice last Friday and return to the gym on Wednesday. San Miguel will take a two-day New Year break then report back for practice on Jan. 2 with Freeman and Williams who will have arrived from the US by then, disclosed team manager Rico Meneses.

Aside from Taulava and Menk, San Miguel will parade Leo Avenido, R. J. Rizada, Christian Luanzon, Chris Banchero, Axel Doruelo, Paolo Hubalde, J. R. Cawaling, Val Acuña, Mike Burtscher and Hans Thiele. The reinforcements are first-class as Freeman is a two-time PBA Best Import awardee and Williams, a 6-10 center, averaged 20.8 points and 14.4 rebounds with the Westports Malaysia Dragons in the ABL last season. To toughen the Beermen, mixed martial arts fighter Nico D’Haenen was recruited as strength and conditioning coach. D’Haenen, a Belgian, has long years of experience as a performance enhancing specialist with athletes under the Philippine Sports Commission and is the conditioning coach of the Homeless World Cup soccer team. He is known for introducing kettlebell training and functional movement screening in the country.

Austria took over the coaching chores from Bobby Parks who is on medical leave. His assistants are Oliver Bunyi, Mac Cuan and Alvin Teng.  Serbian Rajko Toroman is team consultant.

“It won’t be easy winning the title but we’ll be ready to battle,” said Meneses. “We’ve played two practice games with other ABL teams so far and we won both even if we were without Gabe and Brian and we played against imports.” In the practice games, San Miguel beat Singapore, 74-67, with Menk scoring 14 points and defeated Saigon, 92-65, with Menk delivering 31 points and 10 rebounds. In its fourth season, the ABL has been reduced from eight to six teams with the exit of the Philippine Patriots and the Bangkok Cobras. The six remaining teams are San Miguel Beer, Indonesia, Westport Malaysia, Chang Thailand Slammers, Jobstreet.com Singapore Slingers and Saigon Heat. The format for the eliminations is a quadruple round robin then the semifinals and finals will be best-of-5 series.

Since each ABL team is allowed three Asean imports to beef up the local lineup, several Filipino players are landing jobs overseas. Jai Reyes moved from the Cobras to Saigon and will team up with Fil-Am Philip Morrison in the Heat backcourt. Another Filipino in the Saigon cast is Karl Dehesa. Patrick Cabahug remains with the Dragons whose coach is Filipino Ariel Vanguardia. The Dragons recently signed up Fil-Tongan Moala Tautuaa and Malay-Pakistani Elishah Bob. Jun-Jun Cabatu and Don Dulay are with the Slingers.  Jeric Canada and Fil-Am Stanley Pringle will be back wearing the Indonesia colors. The Warriors also hired 6-7, 250-pound Fil-Am forward Richard Smith. Froilan Baguion hooked up with the Slammers. Filipinos trying out with different ABL clubs include Julius Pasculado and Mark Macapagal.

Among the imports playing in the ABL this season are Steve Thomas of Indonesia, University of San Francisco’s 6-7 Dior Lowhorn and Northern Kentucky’s 6-9 David Palmer of Saigon, former Atlanta Hawks guard Cedric Bozeman of UCLA and University of Connecticut’s 6-9 Gavin Edwards of Malaysia and Oregon State’s 6-10 Kyle Jeffers and University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s 6-8 Rashad Jones-Jennings of Singapore. 

Kobe Bryant’s father Joe will coach the Slammers while Todd Purves is back in a bid for two straight titles with the Warriors. Jason Rabedeaux will coach Saigon.  The ABL opens this season with new CEO Anthony Macri and Fil-Am Riel Banaria as head of basketball operations.