3x3 guessing game

The word is the PBA and the SBP have agreed to name a pool of players from which to select the final four to comprise the Philippine team competing at the FIBA 3x3 World Cup in the Philippine Arena on June 8-12. It’s anybody’s guess who the players in the pool will be although the speculation is Christian Standhardinger, Troy Rosario, Stanley Pringle, Terrence Romeo, Marcio Lassiter, Arwind Santos, Mo Tautuaa, Chris Ross and R. R. Pogoy are under consideration.

The PBA Board of Governors met for nearly three hours at the Marco Polo Hotel in Hong Kong last Thursday to take up critical issues, including the 3x3 lineup. PBA chairman Ricky Vargas and TNT alternate governor Patrick Gregorio flew in late Wednesday from Bangkok where they attended an Olympic Council of Asia conference. Vargas is concurrently POC president and Gregorio, POC secretary-general. The other PBA governors arrived in Hong Kong last Wednesday afternoon and returned home yesterday evening.

Japeth Aguilar was reportedly considered to join the pool but was struck out because of conflict in schedule. Aguilar is booked to play for Barangay Ginebra in a game in Legazpi City on June 10, knocking him out of contention. The PBA is zeroing in on players who are not scheduled to see action in the Commissioner’s Cup during the FIBA joust.

PBA commissioner Willie Marcial said both the SBP and PBA will make a joint announcement on the composition of the 3x3 pool and the appointment of the head coach this coming week, during a PBA playday, possibly on Friday or next Sunday to allow for time to contact the players. The head coach will likely be an assistant coach of a PBA team and not in the staff of Gilas.

There will be 20 men’s and 20 women’s teams in the World Cup. No draw was held to decide which teams landed in four groups of five in each division. Instead, FIBA used the 3x3 ranking system to determine the bracketing. As host, the Philippines is automatically seeded in the men’s and women’s tournaments.

Under FIBA rules, a maximum of 10 teams from a single continent could qualify and at least 30 FIBA member associations must participate. Given the limitations and the ranking system, FIBA distributed the 20 men’s and 20 women’s teams in different brackets according to seedings. The first seed went to Group A, the second seed to Group B, the third seed to Group C, the fourth seed to Group D, the fifth seed to Group D, the sixth seed to Group C and so on, following the “snake” trail system. The Philippine men’s team wound up in Group C with Russia, Brazil, Mongolia and Canada. The Philippine men’s team is ranked No. 57 in the 3x3 ladder with 1,951,640 points and is seeded No. 19 over only No. 20 Nigeria, rated No. 68. Top seed Serbia has 27,421,640 points.

Marcial said the Board also discussed a proposal to sanction projects of the newly-formed foundation Samahan Ng Dating Propesyonal na Baskebolista ng Pilipinas, recommendations on rule adjustments by the PBA Competition Committee, a program on injury prevention protocols with orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Jose Raul Canlas’ participation and a coordination plan for Gilas in the coming windows of the FIBA Asia/Pacific qualifiers for the 2019 FIBA World Cup.

Rule changes that will be effective in the Commissioner’s Cup starting today are the reduction of 30-second timeouts from three to two or one each half and no automatic goaltending if a defensive player hits the backboard in attempting to block a shot. If there is no attempt to block and a defensive player deliberately slams the backboard in a shooting situation, goaltending will be called.

Regarding contact with the net, goaltending will be called only if it is pulled so as to obstruct conversion.