MANILA, Philippines - The Brunei Barracudas will have Filipino Bong Ramos as their coach in the fledgling Association of Southeast Asian Nation Basketball League (ABL).
Ramos, a veteran coach in both the RP and Indonesian basketball circuits, recently signed a one-year contract with the Barracudas with hopes of steering the team to a strong and respectable finish in the ABL – the first professional league in the region.
“We’re not one of the strongest but I hope I could help my new team make it to the Final Four,” said Ramos.
Ramos has tapped Don Camaso and Francis Adriano – former PBA players – as his ASEAN imports and is still in the process of selecting tall American imports that would man the slot.
“We’re still looking for American imports, we want them tall because we would be relying on them most of the time,” he said.
Ramos made his mark in the Indonesian Basketball League where he was named the 2003 Coach of the Year for steering the Aspac team to a quadruple championship that same year.
He went on to become Indonesia’s national coach the same year and during his tenure gave the powerhouse RP team a scare in the 2003 Hanoi Southeast Asian Games.
Before his forthcoming ABL stint, Ramos steered Garuda Flexi Bandung to a third place finish in the IBL early this year and before that the CLS Knights Surabaya to a Final Four effort also in the IBL.
Ramos was also a coach in the now defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association and FedEx in the PBA and was an assistant coach at Talk N’ Text and Barangay Ginebra.
He was one of the first Filipino imports in Indonesia where he suited up for Pelita Jaya in 1988, or seven years after he played for the Mapua team that won an NCAA championship alongside then league MVP Leo Isaac.
In the ABL, Ramos would be pitted against the RP Patriots’ counterpart Louie Alas and four other equally veteran coaches from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.