Perlas 3x3 in tough grind

According to Philippine national women’s coach Pat Aquino, landing in the same bracket as four European contenders will make surviving the preliminary round of the FIBA 3x3 World Cup a tough challenge but playing before the homecrowd at the Philippine Arena on June 8-12 will be an inspiration to the four-strong Perlas squad.

No draw was held to decide the bracketing of the 20 women’s teams as FIBA used international 3x3 standing points as the basis for the seeding. Since the Philippines has never played in four previous 3x3 World Cups, it ranked last with only 221,382 points compared to top seed Venezuela with 3,964,200. Even Malaysia was ranked higher at No. 16 with 909,385 points. The other Asian countries in the competition are Turkmenistan, China, Kazakhstan and Iran.

The Perlas team is composed of 6-2 Jack Animam, 20, of NU, 5-5 Janine Pontejos, 26, of CEU, 5-8 Gemma Miranda, 23, of NU and 5-8 Afril Bernardino, 27, of NU. Animam, Miranda and Bernardino were on the national teams that Aquino led to a first-ever Level 1 promotion in FIBA Asia in 2015 and retention in 2017. Aquino, 46, has piloted NU to the last four UAAP women’s senior basketball titles with a record 64-game winning streak.

The Philippines is bracketed in Pool D with last year’s World Cup silver medalist Hungary, last year’s EuroCup silver medalist Spain, last year’s EuroCup bronze medalist Netherlands and Germany. Perlas opens its campaign against the Netherlands at 2:50 p.m. on June 8 then plays Germany at 6:40 p.m. on the same day. The Philippines returns to action against Spain at 4:20 p.m. on June 10 then faces Hungary at 7 p.m. on the same day. Only the top two teams of each bracket will advance to the knockout playoff stage.

“We’ve been practicing over a month now,” said Aquino. “We recently played the NU senior men’s team, including Chino Mosqueda, and gave a good fight before losing, 21-17. I think we’ve got the best players on our team in this era and I know we’re not far from other countries but playing for the first time against European teams makes it a lot tougher. We have to rely on our talent going into this tournament.”

Aquino said it’s his first time to coach 3x3 at the World Cup. “I coached men’s 3x3 at the Asian Cup with Kevin Ferrer, Bacon Austria, Gio Ciriacruz and Robbie Celiz but never at the highest level,” he said. “We’ll just have to work on how to move the ball quickly to get open shots. If you notice, 3x3 is a lot faster than 5x5 so conditioning is a factor which is why I got younger players.”

Germany is bannered by Texas-born naturalized player 5-6 Rachel Arthur of Houston Baptist University. Another Houston Baptist player 5-9 Wiebke Bruns, 27, is on the team. Others are 5-9 Luana Rodefeld, 20, and 6-0 Laura Zdravevska, 20. Hungary’s players are 6-3 Bettina Bozoki, 28, 5-8 Dora Medgyessy, 31, 5-10 Krisztina Sule, 30 and 5-9 Alexandra Theodorean, 27.

Spain is led by former WNBA Minnesota Lynx guard 5-8 Nuria Martinez, a veteran of two Olympics and three World Championships. Martinez, 34, joined the Spanish national senior team at 17 and stayed on for 15 years. She has seen action as an import in Turkey, Italy and Russia. Her teammate Vega Gimeno, 27, is a 6-0 former Robert Morris University player. The others in the roster are 5-7 Paula Palomares, 33, and 6-3 Aitana Cuevas, 31. The Netherlands’ four players are all imports in the German league. They are 6-2 Sharon Beld, 29, 6-0 Louce Bettonril, 24, 5-8 Jacobine Klerx, 23 and 5-6 Karin Kuijt, 27.