Basketball's Road to Rio 2016

Almost all national basketball leagues are over, or are wrapping up. You know what that means? If you're following non-NBA basketball, that means it's time for the summer of international hoops: or more importantly, the last summer of international hoops as we know it. If you're following the NBA, well more, crazy free agency news, but that's why you came here for.

As every follower of international basketball should know by now, this is the last summer where the qualification to the Olympics will be done this way. In Tokyo 2020, the qualification system would be a lot different, which we would get to later. Beginning with the FIBA Oceania Championship in August 20 (or less than a month from now) until the final of the FIBA Asia Championship in October 3, there'd only be three days where there aren't any qualification games being played.

Your Asian Games basketball cheat sheet

Despite losing three consecutive games already, Gilas Pilipinas can still make it to the knockout stage of the 2014 Asian Games. How? See the cheatsheet below:

Advancing teams:

• Red: South Korea & Qatar
• Green: South Korea & Kazakhstan
• Yellow: Kazakstan & Qatar
• Blue: South Korea & Philippines
• Purple: See Note (A)
• Orange: See Note (B)

Notes after the jump:

2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup in one diagram

In honor of The Telegraph's awesome FIFA World Cup Venn diagram, I present the FIBA World Cup version. after the jump.

Gilas Pilipinas #Spain2014 schedule

#Spain2014: What you may have missed

Draw's over, we've had enough with pots -- eight of them -- in one week. Everyone's has had their piece with what has happened, so I won't have any of those. Instead, I'd pitch in where everybody else apparently missed.

Your #Spain2014 mascots: 10 things Ole and Hop are not

Say "HELLO!" to #Spain2014 mascots, Ole and Hop!

More on Ole & Hop, the official mascots of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, here http://t.co/OoIuqgcwib #Spain2014 pic.twitter.com/17gCmXzvGt
— FIBA (@FIBA) January 31, 2014

If you're paying attention, Ole and Hop resemble the two hands at the logo of #Spain2014. But wait, haven't you seen these goofy hands from somewhere? These are the 10 things are pals, Ole and Hop, aren't:

2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup mock draw 3.0

First, the massive news: FIBA has awarded the 4 wild cards to Brazil, Finland, Greece and Turkey. They complete the 24-team tournament in Spain.

Congrats @HellenicBF @BasketFinland @CBB_basquete @TurkishBBall! See you Monday at the Draw of #Spain2014! http://t.co/wnPWScsN6L
— FIBA (@FIBA) February 1, 2014

Second... wait, Finland? How did even Finland get in the mix? First, the massive, I repeat, MASSIVE withdrawals of Germany, Italy and China, and the pseudo-withdrawal of Russia opened up three slots in the wild card race.

2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup mock draw 2.0

A week from now FIBA will announce the four wild cards which will complete the 24-team FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain. A week from Monday, they'd draw the teams to determine how the groups are split up. In between those dates, FIBA will announce how the teams will be seeded, and how the pots will be split up. Way back in September 2013, I already made a mock draw, before the conclusion of the EuroBasket. Now that all of the continental championships are over, and the 15 wild card entrants are known, it's way past time for a version 2 of the mock draw. Let's begin!

How to solve the PBA's FIBA scheduling woes

The PBA now has a huge problem on scheduling concerns as long as Gilas Pilipinas is concerned. Any well-meaning coach will tell you that 2 months is the best amount of time a national team can use in training: these include actual training, tuneup games, tuneup tournaments and traveling to and from each venue.

However, the PBA, to maintain fiscal stability, reverted to the three conference format: more playoff games, higher attendance. However, this means the season has to be lengthened somewhat; this also means less them for the national team to train. So, what can the PBA do?

2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualifying preview

In case you're living under a rock, FIBA had earlier announced that they will change the qualifying system for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Yes, including the new qualifying system, it'll be held five years from now. What does this mean for Gilas? Would this be easier or harder?

All-time Philippine basketball team head-to-head records

Did you know that no African team has beaten the Philippines in the FIBA World Cup or in the Olympics? Or the only European countries the Philippines has beaten on those competitions are Bulgaria, Estonia, France (twice), Hungary, Israel (twice; European for this purpose), Italy and... Spain? Or the American teams that the Philippines have yet to beat are Brazil, Panama, Peru and the USA? Or Korea is the team the Philippines has met the most times? (You would've probably guessed that right.)

You may have not been looking for it, but deep down inside your mind you must have wondered, just how many times has the Taiwanese and Gilas met? Now it's here: the head-to-head records of the Philippines against every country it has faced in the Olympics, FIBA Basketball World Cup and FIBA Asia Championship. No Asian Games, Southeast Asian Games, Jones Cup, friendlies, tune-ups and any tournament that is not any of those three. Get those, after the jump.

#Spain2014 RotW wild card race, or why China and Brazil makes it

The qualifying for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup is over, almost: now FIBA has to select three "invited teams" (their language), or commonly called as "wild cards", to complete the 24-team tournament. Since FIBA can't select more three teams from a continent, and on all accounts, FIBA chose the 3 European teams, that means there is usually one spot left for teams from the rest of the world (RotW). But with really impressive upsets elsewhere, FIBA might choose 2 wild cards outside Europe: and those would have to be Brazil and China.

#Spain2014 European wild card race

The FIBA Basketball World Cup (nee FIBA World Championship), must be the only high profile "world championship" in the world that has berths assigned to wild cards, or entries that "qualify" to the tournament by writing an essay and donating a generous sum instead of participating in an actual tournament. Sure, the Olympics has them, mostly for individual sports such as swimming; even FIBA has wild cards for the Olympic basketball tournament, but there is a wild card tournament.

FIBA has two concrete criteria for wild cards:

• They must have competed in qualifying tournaments.
• Only three wild cards are allowed per FIBA zone.

That means pretty much everyone has a shot. Everyone with mad writing skills, and who has boatloads of money.

2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup mock draw I

With only the EuroBasket left to decide Europe's 6 berths in the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, and with 7 quarterfinalists guaranteed to get in, that means only one unlucky team would not go to Spain outright. There are also four wildcards, but on 2010 three of them are on pot -- more on pots later -- so we can assign placeholders form them in the meanwhile.

Gilas 2.0 postmortem: The Philippines is going to the World Cup!

Nope, not that World Cup. The FIBA Basketball World Cup. It's been a long time coming, and the Gilas boys have finally broke through. In 2009, I've written about things the Gilas program can improve on. While not everything I wanted to see transpired, we got the silver that glistened like gold.

Unofficial men's FIBA rankings

Bored waiting for FIBA to update their FIBA Rankings after Gilas made it to the World Cup? Don't worry. I computed them just for you! Disclaimer: These rankings are unofficial, might be wrong, I might've missed something. But mostly this is how FIBA would've computed it.

Smart Gilas: Post-portem

When JV Casio missed the supposedly game-winning heave on the bronze medal game against Korea, Mico Halili was silent. I switched off the TV, and I didn't know if Halili ever spoke again on that telecast.

That should've been the collective expression of the Gilas hopefuls when Casio missed. Or when the other players missed free throws. They missed free throws as if George Muresan was guarding them.

So the question is: did Smart Gilas achieve their purpose? What is their purpose? To qualify for the Olympics. In that case, they didn't qualify for the Olympics.

Furthermore, aside from their purpose of qualifying for the Olympics, there was a supposedly way for them to reach that goal. Get the best college players (at least those who are willing), naturalize a "rebounding monster", mold them into a team, and make that team qualify for the Olympics.

Were they able to do it that way? The short answer is no -- when the time the team was being formed in 2007, there was no way they'd be able to achieve anything on the international stage, despite all of the coaching, training and tuneup tournaments unless they'd get PBA backups. Rajko Toroman knew this all too well, hence he asked for PBA reinforcements in the Asian Games. For the first time, the Philippines played in the Asian Games not to win, but the gauge the competition. We finished 6th, the worst since the PBA sent in a team, although in this case, not all players were from the PBA.

Toroman, as all coaches know, that the primary success for a team to succeed is talent. You can instill discipline, design the most effective plays, play endlessly in tuneup tournaments, but it'll all boil down to talent. Franz Pumaren, in an interview at Hardball a few years ago, said it bluntly: the DLSU system worked not primarily because of the system, but due to the talent that is in the system.

Toroman hence asked for PBA reinforcements. While they did help in the tournaments, ultimately succeeding where the 2 all-PBA teams before them failed, qualify for the semifinals, the supposedly two wins to the Olympics became two losses that led to the team not qualify for the Olympics altogether. The PBA reinforcements, it turned out, still weren't able to play to Toroman's system, at least into the final 2 games.

So does it turn out that talent is not that necessary? No. But once you get in the talent, then you should mold them. The Smart Gilas boys, it turned out, still needed PBA reinforcements. Basketball is played by 5 players per team on the court. Generally, the lesser the number of players playing, the more chemistry it takes for them to be effective. Smart Gilas, with their two PBA stints, should have had the chemistry already. But with several players leaving and new ones joining, the chemistry was back to zero.

What we saw but had not realized immediately was that the talent disparity between the professional and collegiate ranks is as wide as Commonwealth Avenue. Unlike in the U.S. where one phenomenal high school player can jump to the NBA and lead his team to the playoffs, the same is not true in the Philippines. Only drunk Ateneans smoking weed will tell you that Kiefer Ravena will lead the Shopinas.com Clickers at least to the semifinals the same way Carmelo Anthony led the Denver Nuggets into the NBA Playoffs.

Which leads me to Kiefer Ravena. That guy has to be the single most-hyped player to come out of the high school ranks in this country since... BJ Manalo? And we all know how BJ Manalo turned out to be. Which shows us another problem: the current generation of basketball players would've probably not lead the national team to Olympics after all.

Every generation of basketball players produced a 7-footer or at least a big man above 6-6. The Centennial Team had 7-0 EJ Feihl, 6-9 Marlou Aquino and the 6-9 Andy Seigle. The tallest Smart Gilas player is naturalized Marcus Douthit and Asi Taulava. The current generation has failed to produce a big man, we'd even have to go to Tonga and the U.S. to find one. While height is not necessarily might, you can contend for a title with a pair of centers at least taller than 6-9. Talent and chemistry can only lead you to... fourth place, although admittedly, it was not the lack of height that caused the last 2 losses. It was chemistry.

So what does a team need? Talent, chemistry and a pair of really tall centers. Marcus Douthit was a stop-gap measure, but fortunately, the next generation looks promising, if you're into tall guys. Greg Slaughter, a legit 7-footer, dominated the UAAP. Let's face it, if it not for him, Ateneo would not have won, whatever Kiefer Ravena or Nico Salva did. Mapua's 6-9 center Yousif Taha still has to dominate the NCAA but if he can put his head on the game, he can post 20-10 numbers. In our case, we don't need to naturalize scorers, as we produce guards and wingmen by the droves. Our only problem is the big man.

While Slaughter and Taha look promising, they might fall into the trap of playing in the collegiate ranks forever. Most star players in the collegiate ranks enter the pros when they're 25. Yep, 25. Arwind Santos is 30 years old and he's on his 5th year in the pros. Kobe Bryant is 33 years old and was in the league since 1996. In the collegiate and in the amateur ranks, your peak form is wasted by not playing in top form for most of the year. Like seriously, who'd injure themselves in the PBL? You'd kill yourself playing in the UAAP but that's for three-and-a-half months for a maximum of 20 games. Slaughter played college ball in Cebu before going to Ateneo, so we can expect him to max out his collegiate eligibility before he elevates his game to the pros.

So why is that a bad thing? FIBA tournaments are conducted at a breakneck pace. In a span of a fortnight, a team has played 9 games. That's not the pace a 30-year-old athlete can realistically play. In the UAAP, a team reaches 9 wins after a month of action.

So while the PBA players may have the talent, they might burn out in these tournaments since they're (1) old, (2) not accustomed to back-to-back games. The only time PBA teams play back-to-back games is... never. They have games every-other-day for the playoffs but realistically the most number of games a team plays per month is 6-7. Compare that to NBA teams who play several back-to-back games per month, with an average of 14 games every month. Ergo, if you're a PBA player playing in a FIBA tournament, you'll burn out, no matter how good your conditioning is.

So, what are the solutions? It's easier to say that the PBA should play more games per week, hence players would get accustomed to the international grind. This will also shorten the season so there'll be more time for national team members to develop chemistry. An alternative is to let a group of teams play an entire week by themselves, then another group for the next week.

The only reason to prevent this from happening is TV coverage. More games per week means more airtime on TV. It's not as if the PBA is worth two channels to air, or two channels would allow themselves to air games. If an extra gameday is added (such as a regular doubleheader on Saturday, not including the provincial game), or another game is added on the existing S-W-F schedule (such as an early afternoon or a late night game), that means another day to reserve for the PBA: no channel will allot four days per week for the PBA unless they have nothing else to air aside from Bundesliga matches and badminton; or another couple of hours for basketball. Would you expect PBA junkies to watch a game held either at 2PM or 10PM?

As for the collegiate leagues, it's time to ditch the 5-for-7(?) rule and replace it with a rule that limits a player to 21 years old or 5 years in college, whichever comes first. This also means high school (junior) tournaments' age limits should be lowered to 16 from 18. In a sporting perspective, it may be a good idea to make these leagues also play more games in a week, but with the "student comes first in 'student-athlete' so they should study first" reasoning I don't see this happening. So the best solution is to move the basketball tournaments to the second semester.

Looking at Lebanon, the best generation of hoops players have gone and they had failed to contend. Interestingly, the Philippines, with whatever generation, or with whatever "A" team it fields -- always contends. Let's not kid ourselves, those 2 PBA teams contended. Even the 2007 team that finished 9th place. The Middle Eastern teams, and even the likes of Japan don't have the luxury of continuity. The Philippines, whether we like or not, has a stable basketball program no matter who runs things. The only duty for the one who'll "run things" is to find talent, find a pair of tall centers, and mold them together.

2011 FIBA Asia Championship primer

The last among the intercontinental championship that doubles as an Olympic qualifier, the FIBA Asia Championship will be the most open in decades... that is, if you ignore the top two teams. Unfortunately, only one team goes to the Olympics outright, but fortunately, the top two teams had either suffered defeats in the tuneup tournaments, or suffered injuries.

This leaves a window of hope for the pretenders, Smart Gilas, or now aptly called Team Pilipinas.

While the recently-introduced format (started in 2009) actually allows you to lose some tough games at the start, the knockout stage will be cutthroat: one loss and you're out. And, as a quirk few people seem to notice, you don't just scout, or perhaps even follow with avid attention, the games within your own group, but the other group as well. The top three teams from Groups A and B shall form Group E, while Groups C and D's top 3 shall form Group F. If you're a discerning Smart Gilas, er Team Pilipinas fan, you do not only follow Group D, but Group C as well.

And that's what we're gonna do.

While China had an option on choosing which group to join after three members per groups were drawn, there was still a possibility of China and Iran facing in the Second Round: fortunately for them, Iran was drawn into Group B. Imagine how impossible will be the odds for Team Pilipinas if Iran landed on Group C.

With Iran and China drawn separately, the only time they'd meet will be at the final, assuming they emerged at the top of their 2nd round groups and they defeated all of their opponents.

What does this mean for Team Pilipinas? Whatever happens, they'd go through at least one team: in this case China, and if they advance to the knockout stage, they'd face Iran, assuming they'd also go that far.

The last time the Philippines and China met at the Asian Championships, China got their B-team and were beaten by the Chot Reyes-led Powerade Team Pilipinas twice: first in the hotly-contested prelim round game, and the last in the playoff for 9th place. This shows that if one of China's main gunners is missing, any team not named Iran has a decent chance of beating them.

Interestingly, Team Pilipinas and China play on the second day. Coach Rajko Toroman had earlier warned that the team might start cold in the tournament, as the TNT boys still have to learn the system. Unfortunately, they better learn fast, and enter the game with the mentality that China can be beaten. Beating China that early can waylaid them at the Iran side of the knockout stage bracket.

It's probably safe to say that both teams can beat, perhaps even easily, UAE and Bahrain, so we'd go to the potential 2nd round teams: the top three from among Japan, Indonesia, Syria and Jordan. Again, it's safe to say that Indonesia will be the team that'll drop out of that group, so we're left with Japan, Syria and Jordan.

The Philippines had been able to beat the Japanese teams in the post-BAP championships, even though they may had ranked higher at the end of the tournament. Nevertheless, this Japanese team made it to the final of the 2010 FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup beating Jordan (that'll be a nice rematch) and Qatar before being blown out by the Lebanese. In the last Jones Cup, the Gilas boys beat the Japanese. It is uncertain if the Japanese will return with their Jones Cup team intact or inject some new players, but the Philippines have been able to beat the Japanese in the games that matter lately -- see for example, in the 2009 championship. However, they had presented matchup problems to the Gilas boys, and even if the TNT boys had become accustomed to Toroman's system, if the Japanese send in new players, it may not be enough.

As for the Syrians, if Michael Madanly is back inject more carnage, the Philippines may find themselves in a thick of the fight to beat Syria. In the last Asian Championship the two teams faced, Chot Reyes coached the Tokushima team to victory in overtime.

Arguably, the toughest team to beat by the Pinoys will be the Jordanians. The Chinese may not be at full strength, but the Jordanians will be one of the top contenders this year. The demons of 2007 will be tested if both teams meet.

There are two scenarios going into the knockout stage. Unlike in 2009 where the Kuwaitis were the only "inferior" opposition (and the Yeng Guiao-coached team had a tough time against them, heck even Toroman coached Gilas to scary win against the Kuwaitis in last year's Asian Games), the 2011 2nd round is shaping up to be a tough cookie to crack, where there are no pushover teams.

Therefore it is key to finish well at the end of the second round as teams such as Iran, Lebanon, Korea and Iran, and even Chinese Taipei and Qatar, lie in wait in the quarterfinals. It's critical for the team to clinch a favorable quarterfinal matchup to ensure a fighting chance of advancing to the semifinals.

As for the semis, if the team goes that far, Iran and China are the potential opponents. So, it's quite impossible for the team not to encounter these powerhouses at any stage of the competition (any team that beats these two teams in the quarterfinals is giving the remaining teams a huge favor). Toroman should pump up his wards in case of a semifinal loss as there is everything to play for to earn those third place medals: a world qualifying tournament berth.

2009 yearender: Top 10 international sports stories

International sports fans had a delight of sporting events and the sports scene didn't let up with highlights worth a second look:

#10: Who thought draws were boring?
As long as Charlize Theron hosts, I can tolerate it.

#9: The curse: Pittsburgh steel one from Kurt Warner as he ALMOST wins one
He won one at St. Louis and he almost led another franchise worth scrambled eggs to the Super Bowl. Too bad the people at Pottsville, Pennsylvania cursed the hapless Cardinals. What better team to beat the Cards: a team from Pennsylvania: BR-7's Pittsburgh Steelers.

#8: Spain barely qualifies, then bamboozles
Spain started the EuroBasket 2009 on a bad way -- losing to Serbia by 9, then had a virtual elimination game against host Poland to even qualify for the quarterfinals. They they had to beat unbeaten France in the QF, which they handily did, and they also won the next two games two, including the rematch with Serbia for the championship, where they blew out the hapless Serbs by 22.

#7: Thank God Tim Tebow's mom did not abort him...
Or else Urban Meyer would have sleepless nights on whether to retire or not. Meyer's probably imitating another champion Florida coach -- Billy Donovan.

#6: Tyler Hansbrough wins one for the curly white dudes
Who said white men can't jump? They still can't, but Tyler doesn't need to jump to bring a home crowd of 70,000 at the Ford Field to cry.

#5: Thrilling finish at San Juan
No USA? No problem -- Brazil, Argentina and Puerto Rico gave a Americas Championship to remember. The Puerto Ricans saw the next generation of hoops players Carlos Arroyo is more than happy to leave behind. Too bad they lost by a measly point, but they qualified anyway to the World Championship so... it's still bad. Spain, China and now Puerto Rico were beaten at the Final of their continental championships. I wonder why SBP insists on bidding for one.

#4: Kobe claims what's his, and lets LBJ gets the consolation prize
"Yo LeBron, get that MVP trophy, I'd rather see Bill Russell give me the golden trophy with a ball about to go to the rim -- just like your shots, they never get in."

#3: This SIX it: FC Barcelona
Purists won't call it a sextuple, but those six shiny trophies are the envy of fans around the world. Especially Manchester United and Real Madrid fans.

#2: If you're not into Canadian football...
Just watch:


#1: Mayweather is back, and then some
I dunno if Juan Manuel Marquez wanted a beatdown of epic proportions, but at least he earned big when he made himself Floyd Mayweather's punching bag.

FIBA Asia Championship: by the numbers

So it's been almost a week since Iran made sure they defended the championship others said wasn't theirs by beaten China on their home floor, via a big margin. Jordan eased out Lebanon to deny the Lebanese a return trip to the World Championship, with the Jordanians punching their ticket with a debut in Turkey next year.

Chinese Taipei justified their wild card selection when they emerged on top of the defeated semifinalists with a blowout win against Qatar, while Korea made sure the Philippines won't pull a rug under them to deny the Fillpinos of a 7th-place finish.

So where did we go wrong? Or were we doomed from the start? Let's scrutinize the numbers, and the intangibles.

Scoring: The Philippines finished eighth in scoring in the tournament, with 80.1 PPG, behind Japan's 84.8 PPG, good enough for first. The Pinoys had a woeful 41.9 field goal percentage, tenth among sixteen teams, and also wound up tenth in three point shooting with a "fair" 30.7 clip (China's amazing 40.2 was first). Shooting freebies was even worse, with Shaq-esque number of 59.6, only ahead of countries such as Kwwait, UAE and Sri Lanka.

So what went wrong? Like other geniuses before me, their analysis of the team prior to the tournament was that it was "an athletic team, that can't shoot." We could've somewhat compensated with good set-up plays to free-up our shooters in the deliberate type of game. We were lucky when the shooters clicked, but when they didn't, we can't come up with a plan "B" as an alternative.

We did employ the run-and-gun offense (when we had the chance), but it was negated when the other team fouled on the break which reverted to the team relying on set-up plays that evolved into one-on-one plays. Even if we do get fouled, we can't shoot well, even without someone guarding the player so the defensive strategy was simplified.

Rebounding: Guess what, the team did wound up second in rebounding in Tianjin, 0.2 of a rebound behind Qatar. But 1/8 final round, the Philippines was second-worst among the teams that advanced to the quarterfinals, only ahead of the Japanese. On the games that mattered, we weren't able to rebound the ball, which could've translated into fastbreak opportunities.

Playmaking: The Philippines was 8th in assists in the championship, with 10 assists per game. That's sorta low, but you'd have to factor in that assists are defined differently in the FIBA game. Still, it is worth noting that India even finished ahead of us, with the South Asians ending up with a 11 assists mark.

As for turnovers, we actually turned out to be fourth-best, only having 12.1 TOs per game, behind only Japan, Korea and Jordan. With "turnover" having a universal definition, you can probably say "Yay!" but with ended up having more turnovers than assists! Again, the FIBA definition of "assist" is different (when you dribble the ball, it won't be counted as an assist, although here in the Philippines and in the NBA it is counted as such).

Defense: Team Pilipinas wounded up LAST in the steals department with 5.9 thefts per game. For a team composed of relatively shorter players, it is rather surprising weren't able to steal the ball more. The Pinoys had a better showing in blocks, ending up 12th with 1.7 per game. Still miserable when you compare it to Iran's tournament-best 5 per game.

But what could've been the deal-breaker are the fouls. Among the teams that advanced in the preliminary round, we are first in committing fouls with 21.9 per game. In the 1/8 finals, the Philippines was tied with Japan and Jordan for first with 22.3 per game. This led not just to foul trouble, but earlier situations of team penalty, that gave a ton of freebies to the opponent.

The intangibles: The key game for us was the preliminary round game against Korea. That would determine which team topped the group, but more than that, the results of the preliminary games except those involving the last-placed team would carry over to the 1/8 final round. The 1–0 vs. Korea would've gave us a theoretically easier opponent in the quarterfinals (in this case, Lebanon) rather than the #2 from the other group.

If we've won that game against Korea, we could've let expended a lot of energy on the Iran game (which we would've not won anyway), and could've used that energy on our quarterfinal opponent. Of course, if we've won against Korea, we might not have had the pressure of beating Chinese Taipei to ensure that we won't finish at worst fourth in the group.

The good side: At least you can see some diamonds in the rough:
We fared better than the Chinese against Iran. Heck, we were only behind the Jordanians and the Taiwanese in the deficit vs. Iran.
Cyrus Baguio should be in the next national team lineup, even if Gilas will take over.
Put emphasis on point guards that distribute the ball well. And quite frankly, get pure PGs.
Make sure the coach knows some plays. Heck, even JRU screens better than the RP 5.

And probably a ton more suggestions but they are worthless anyway since Toroman is a genius. But I haven't talked to Chito Narvasa yet.

(P.S.: Catch NCAA updates here tomorrow at 2PM. The games are San Beda vs. Mapua and Baste vs. Perps.)