Last Wednesday, the House Committee on Games and Amusements held a hearing to look into the Wynne Arboleda incident that happened during the Burger King-Smart Gilas game three weeks ago. The investigation delved into, among other things, the allegation by SBP executive director Noli Eala (and repeated by Smart Gilas loyalists) that Burger King coach Yeng Guiao had ordered Burger King players to rough up the developmental team players. The loyalists had taken a Twitter report by Patricia Hizon about Guiao’s pre-game speech instructing his team to “put them in their place” as evidence that the fiery coach wanted a hit out on the Gilas boys.

Except it wasn’t true, as Patricia herself attested to during the hearing, and that the statement was taken the wrong way by people with certain biases. There were NO directives for BK players to hurt anyone, according to her.

Here was Patricia’s original tweet of Guiao’s speech: “Malayo pa bago nila makuha spot niyo. Pero pakita niyo that this is your spot. Put them in their place and have pride.”

Now, it’s not hard to imagine Guiao instructing his players to play extra-physical against anyone; it’s part of the image he cultivates. But coaches do that all the time. Last season, Alaska coach Tim Cone threatened physical violence against Mac Cardona if the Talk N Text guard doesn’t stop his taunting. In the US, longtime Temple coach John Chaney was involved in a controversy after he instructed one of his bench players to take hard fouls against an opponent who subsequently got injured.

But what Yeng Guiao’s speech that afternoon betrays isn’t his guilt, but instead his extraordinary understanding of his players’ psyche. It shows why he’s been so successful in taking unheralded players and motivating them to play above themselves.

Consider this: there are only ten teams in the PBA, and each team only has 14 spots. At any one time, the maximum total number of active PBA players is only 140. Think about that number, and consider how many Filipinos play basketball, here and abroad. That number is miniscule and each spot is very precious.

Then take a look at the Burger King roster. They have two marquee scorers, Gary David and Ronjay Buenafe, neither of whom played in the elite collegiate leagues; playing for Lyceum and Emilio Aguinaldo College meant that they had to work doubly hard to get noticed and eventually get to where they are. Arboleda, often mocked for the fact that his father-in-law owns the team, had to take the long route to success. He lucked out in getting a spot for the Laguna Lakers after his college coach at MLQU was tapped to handle the team, and he parlayed that into PBA stints with Pop Cola and Tanduay. He actually made it to the PBA ahead of the Lina Group.

Beau Belga, Aaron Aban, and JR Quinahan were first-round draft picks whose original teams had given up on them. Richard Yee was unceremoniously cut from Purefoods despite spending ten years with the team. Chico Lanete, Mark Yee, and Egay Billones played for no-name collegiate programs, toiled in the commercial leagues, and went unsigned by professional teams before someone finally took a flyer on them. Carlo Sharma once thought that his PBA career was over after he was cut from Shell. Even rookie Ronnie Matias faced crazy odds, playing out of Philippine Maritime Institute (who knew they had a basketball team?) before having an excellent PBL career that led to him getting drafted this year. I got my Yeng Guiao rookies crossed, Larry Rodriguez played for PMI, while Ronne Matias played for the University of Manila Hawks. Matias joined Adamson in the UAAP, but I can't remember him seeing action for the Falcons. He's been around.

Each and every player on the team has worked very, very hard for a spot in the league. Some of these players probably feel that they’re only one step away from losing their spot; some of them almost did.

On the other side were Smart Gilas, a team composed of highly-touted collegiate stars. Most of their players were heavily recruited by the best college programs since high school, and those who weren’t, quickly gained prominence and following in the top two collegiate leagues. The most popular players on the team have starred in television commercials, and all of them have been signed to lucrative long-term contracts to play for the program. Without having proven anything yet, they have been handed the financial security and the popular acclaim that has been so elusive for Burger King players.

What Guiao did merely was to point out the situation to his players: these guys are here to take your hard-earned spot, put them in their place. So they did.

Wynne Arboleda played physical, dirty even. But the others guys on Burger King also put Gilas in their place. Ronjay Buenafe and Gary David kept torching Chris Tiu and JR Cawaling. Richard Yee outfoxed Japeth Aguilar. JR Quinahan abused Rabeh Al-Husseini. They showed that these young guys do not belong on the same court, especially when Gilas plays without an import. At least, not yet.

The Wynne Arboleda incident was indeed unfortunate, and SBP loyalists have taken it as an opportunity to go at Yeng Guiao again. Between those two things, we failed to see what the locker room pep talk really was when taken in context: a pretty good speech.

The new PBA season is barely three weeks old, but Purefoods coach Ryan Gregorio is already in midseason form when it comes to his soundbites. Check them out:

“We must be prepared for an all-out effort by Coke. They are shooting for their first win and they will surely go flat-out. Our energies must be greater and our minds clearer.”

October 29, 2009

“(Ginebra) used their overwhelming advantage in quickness against the talented and taller Beemen. They played with tremendous grit and determination. They get their energy once they score on fastbreaks, and the solution to that is that we have to take high percentage shots.”

October 18, 2009

“The return of Caguioa has given them an added boost in the energy department. He was really the spark and he must be contained.”

October 18, 2009

“It’s always nice to win the first game. At least for this particular game, we were witnesses to a game where the wheeling and dealing in the off-season worked. Yes, we want to start on the right foot, but it takes so many games to reach the destination where we want to be in. This is pretty much a good indicator of the things to come (for us) in the conference.”

October 11, 2009

“Facing Burger King is always a good test. They will surely be a tough nut to crack despite the departure of Arwind Santos. They will rely on quickness, roughness and aggressiveness – all the characteristics of a Yeng Guiao team.”

October 10, 2009

It’s like he’s already auditioning for a television analyst job if he gets fired for his team underachieving again this season. Oh, who am I kidding? The guy is bulletproof. He could take a dump on Danding Cojuangco’s pizza and still not get fired.

Cebu has been known traditionally as a hotbed of hoops, and with good reason. Legends such as Mon Fernandez, Dondon Ampalayo, and Jojo Lastimosa first made their marks in Cebuano collegiate leagues, as did more recent stars such as Dondon Hontiveros and Roger Yap.

The University of the Visayas has dominated Cebu’s top collegiate league, the Cesafi, for the last decade, thanks to a program led by a couple of legendary Cebuano hotshots, head coach Boy Cabahug and assistant Al Solis. A few years ago, the Green Lancers scored a coup after signing up 6-11 Fil-Am project Greg Slaughter, and the team is finally reaping the benefits as the behemoth starts to tap his potential. Slaughter, a mainstay of the Smart Gilas Developmental squad coached by Rajko Toroman, is surrounded by the usual bevy of Cebuano shooters who have carried the UV program to eight straight Cesafi titles.

Standing in their way is their archrivals from the University of Cebu. Curiously, the UC Webmasters are also handled by another Cebuano sharpshooter from yesteryears, from Alaska mainstay Roehl Gomez. The Webmasters have been carried this far by 6-9 center June Mar Fajardo, a Smart Gilas prospect who is reportedly the best big man playing outside Metro Manila cage leagues.

The two centers of attraction have had an awesome duel in their best-of-five finals series thus far. UV took the first game, 64-56, behind 16 points from Slaughter, but Fajardo’s 27 points and 14 rebounds powered UC to a narrow 71-70 victory in the second game. UV struck back with an 81-67 win in game 3, behind 22 points and 11 rebounds from Slaughter, his third double-double in the series.

It’s too bad that basketball fans from Metro Manila are missing out on the action between the two behemoths. It would be fun to see if the two big men would be the best pair of big men to come out of the collegiate ranks in the South since Ramon Fernandez and Abet Guidaben, or if they end up being the next iteration of JR Quinahan and Samigue Eman.

The worst moment of my basketball fandom came in September 1994, in an NCAA championship game at the oven-hot Rizal Memorial Coliseum. I was in sixth grade then, and I was with my classmates rooting for the Letran Knights, who were defending their championship against their arch-enemy San Sebastian Stags. We went there expecting to win like we did the year before, but Baste started to pull away late in the 4th quarter behind the exploits of their high-flying swingmen, (the overage) Jesse Bardaje and Rodney Santos.

Watching your team lose was bad enough, but it was what happened after that really made it bad. With the game out of reach, the San Sebastian crowd decided to collectively, sarcastically, start rooting for Letran. Those fuckers just wanted to rub it in, so they started chanting “Go, Letran! Go, go Letran!” and cheering whenever the Knights made a meaningless basket.

It was just absolute, utter pwnage, and the worst thing was that we couldn’t do anything about it. When the Baste gallery started up their trademark “Poging Baste...” song (the single greatest pep song in the world), the Letran crowd couldn’t even muster up enough energy for our Palibhasa Letran. Over the years, I’ve developed a grudging admiration for that old Baste crowd, the baddest enemy crowd I’d ever faced.

I don’t know if there was a similar scene during San Sebastian’s clinching victory over defending champions San Beda last Saturday, but Baste’s pwnage of the rest of the league this season certainly merited sarcastic cheers from their gallery. Except for a funk late in the eliminations and the first game of their final four playoff series, the Stags have been pretty fucking awesome this season.

Frankly, I’m still confounded by the Stags’ championship run. It wasn’t that they won, it was how they won. Cinderella’s have gone all the way in Philippine college basketball before, most recently in 2006 when Pido Jarencio’s UST upset Ateneo. In that season, the Growling Tigers caught fire at the end of the eliminations and rode the hot hands of Jojo Duncil in the finals; they lurked all season long and snared their prey during crunch time.

San Sebastian did nothing of the sort; they dominated the summer leagues, and then they won their first fifteen regular season games in very impressive fashion. Even when they swooned, the players on the court always carried themselves like their losing was a mere aberration. In both games wherein the Red Lions beat them this season, the matches came down to the final possession.

I’m still curious about the Stags, and I don’t know quite what to make of them. I’m looking forward to seeing them next season, with a reasonably intact lineup (their only key loss will be main man Jimbo Aquino, who served out his fifth year). We’ll see if Ato Agustin’s magic works the second time around.

I am as interested about Aquino’s future prospects as a professional basketball player. Will he be Bardaje, the college cult hero who never made it in the big leagues, or will he be Santos, the longtime PBA veteran who’s had a solid run as a vital part of numerous championship teams?