Bolts relish BCL stint

MANILA, Philippines — Despite exiting the Basketball Champions League (BCL) Asia in the quarterfinal round, the Meralco Bolts relished the “great experience” of playing in the international competition. 

Meralco absorbed an 83-78 defeat to Mongolian team Broncos Wednesday evening. 

The Bolts led by double digits late in the third quarter but lost it and trailed by double digits as well. 

Eventually, Meralco stormed back but came up short. 

After the game, Bolts head coach Nenad Vucinic said that the tournament was good for the development of the players, but acknowledged that there are difficulties for the squad. 

“Yes, it was a great experience for us. Not many Filipino teams do play international competitions and we have played for the last two years in international competitions and it's good for the development of our players,” he told reporters. 

“But, it's very difficult because we play the local league at the same time but I really enjoyed as a coach this tournament,” he added. 

Vucinic added that it is also difficult for the team to play with imports they are not familiar with. 

“It was disappointing for us. We expected more but it is very hard for a team that plays in a local league with no foreign players to join for a couple of practices before the tournament,” he said.

“It's very difficult to get some real chemistry but I think our foreign players have done very well to fit into our team and we were very pleased to have those guys,” he added. 

The team played with imports Glynn Watson, John Egbunu and Jordon Varnado in the tournament. 

Against the Broncos, it was Varnado and Watson who spearheaded the offense of Meralco, with the former pouring in 23 while the latter had 22. 

Egbunu, for his part, had 10 markers and eight boards. 

But aside from the three, only Bong Quinto had double digits with 12 points for the Bolts, who made just 29 of their 77 attempts from the field, good for 37.7%, and had 15 turnovers. 

The Mongolian team, on the other hand, made 27 of their 66 shots. 

“We started well, then we really disappeared for a couple of quarters and managed to come back towards the end of the game. Had a chance to win but probably overall, we deserved to lose that game. It wasn't our day today, shooting was really off for most of the players and I think the opposition team really deserved to be in the semifinal,” Vucinic said. 

Meralco led by 11, 53-42, at the halfway point of the third quarter after a pair of free throws by Watson. 

But a massive 16-4 run to finish the quarter pushed the Broncos ahead, 61-57, heading into the fourth. 

Off the offensive punch provided by Ian Bennet Miller and Barsbold Baatar Erdene, the Broncos took a double digit lead early on. 

Meralco sliced the lead to two, 78-80, with 1:11 left, but free throws by the squad down the stretch iced the game. 

“I think we played okay but obviously we cannot be happy with dropping out of the quarterfinals. We had bigger plans but sometimes it does not work like that.” 

Meralco won one game in this year's BCL Asia, which came against the Utsunomiya Brex.

The Bolts will now turn their focus back to the PBA Philippine Cup, where they are defending their All-Filipino title. They have no more elimination games left, but they are sitting at the bottom half of the quarterfinals with a 6-5 win-loss record.