After my trip to Thailand last week, I went straight to Boracay to catch up with my buddies for a quick vacation. Obligatory player sighting story: I saw Renren Ritualo a couple of times around the island, the second time, he was with his wife walking at D’Mall just past the booth where they have the basketball shooting machine. The guys at the booth were calling out to him to try out the shooting game, but he ignored them. I kinda wish he took them up on it; I would have loved to see Renren laying waste to the D’Mall basketball shooting game record.

While on my trip, I was only able to take in very little basketball, watching game 5 of the Derby Ace-Rain or Shine game (while jumping to the La Salle-UE game at the other channel). I was absolutely on edge the whole time during the game, and I felt like Sol Mercado bailed the Llamados out when he took a thirty-footer at the end of regulation instead of going hard to the basket. I caught the start of the Ginebra-Alaska game, but I had to leave – a buffet dinner and more heavy drinking beckoned – which was a shame, because people said the main game was even more epic than the opener.

By the way, Ryan Gregorio bringing in Tony Washam? Looks like a genius move so far.

Oh, and how about 20,000 fans turning out for a PBA quarterfinals doubleheader? Not bad for a dying league, eh?

Lotsa news from the past week or so, in bullets:

• The latest PCIJ report on presidential campaign donors brings up some very interesting information. Can you guess which candidate got donations from both Ricky Razon and Manny Pangilinan, who contribute a sizeable chunk of cash to the De La Salle and Ateneo programs, respectively? Will post the answer in the last bullet.


• Even though he’s on the other side of the world, Pacific Rims author Rafe Bartholomew still spends his New York City mornings watching PBA games on live streaming. Last week, he wrote about Talk N Text, the new villains of the PBA, and he received a detailed rebuttal in the comments section from Texters coach Chot Reyes.


• Chot Reyes also revealed on Twitter that he was reading Rafe’s book, which concludes with a best-of-seven series between Alaska and Talk N Text. Curiously, Coach Chot and the Texters will be facing Alaska in a best-of-seven series starting today.


• Nice GMANews.TV report on Cyrus Baguio’s throat-slashing gesture towards Ginebra (which he plays off as a joke). Earlier, I mistakenly attributed the story to Rey Joble.


• Check out Jonas Terrado's excellent sports blog, a must-read especially during the UAAP season. It seems like we've all been reading him forever (actually, since his UBelt.com days).


• From Joble last week: Pitting the NCAA coaches against UAAP mentors in a basketball game. I love how Ateneo coach Norman Black, who’s the epitome of class on the sidelines, gets all competitive and starts trash-talking when asked about his hardcourt prospects: “Don’t make me laugh. I’m an import. No way the NCAA team can beat us.” I agree that the UAAP guys would probably win, but I think the NCAA has a puncher’s chance, if Vergel Meneses and Ato Agustin decide to make a game of it.


• Big NBA week for Asian-Americans: Portland names Rich Cho as its new general manager, while former Harvard standout Jeremy Lin is about to sign a deal with the Golden State Warriors. Also, former 7-UP import Dell Demps is in the running for GM jobs in Phoenix and New Orleans. UPDATE: It looks like Demps is headed to NOLA.


• Cocktales reports that four senior executives of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, including Talk N Text governor and SBP Vice Chairman Ricky Vargas, was given a compensation package last year of P297 million. “Assuming that the generous package is divided equally,” the report says the executives “will still end up taking home an envy-raising P59.4 million each.”


• The presidential candidate that got millions in cash from Ricky Razon and Manny Pangilinan? None other than former President Joseph Estrada.

Philippine basketball has started to develop a small but vibrant community on Twitter, and Fire Quinito rounds up the best messages, in 140 characters or less.



Rain or Shine import Rod Nealy tweeted this shortly before his team was blown out by Ginebra last Friday. I think Rod got stood up by Destiny for their date. There are rumors though that Destiny was seen later that night leaving Ginebra import Chris Daniels’ apartment. You know what they always say… Destiny is a fickle bitch.



This tweet makes me wonder: Did Ed Ducut have foot surgery during his rookie year too? What about Boy Valera? Kevyn White?



Heh. In fact, the women who left a comment about James’ statement are just about ready to give him a “Husband of the Year” award. Yay to the power of social media!



Ok, I’m beginning to think Robby Reyes is tweeting these things to try to get into Fire Quinito.



Longtime favorite PBA scribe James Ty III (he’s the guy at the games constantly speaking into his tape recorder) fighting the good fight for Ateneo courtside reporter Jessica “Jessilicious” Mendoza. Chocolates, nice! Hard to argue with his taste.

I mentioned earlier that I had been planning to write about the Smart Gilas victory in the recently-concluded pocket tournament over Jordan. However, like everything else, including her brother’s inauguration, it had to take a backseat to an issue concerning Kris Aquino. I apologize for that.

Anyway, here are the things we learned from the invitational, apart from the fact that Mac Cardona punches like a chick:

• Mac Baracael was the hero of the final game against Jordan, and at this point, I think we could safely say that he’s they key to Smart Gilas’ upsets. This was also the case during the team’s successful campaign last January in Dubai, when Baracael caught fire and led the team to several upsets. When he’s shooting well, he opens up the Gilas offense, which is predicated on spacing and ball movement, making the team very hard to defend.
  
  That said, I can imagine why Toroman is still looking forward to having Kelly Williams on the team; in the first Jordan game, the visitors repeatedly took advantage of Baracael in the post and off the boards, and Toroman was forced to take him out and go with an awkward twin tower combination of Marcus Douthit and Greg Slaughter. It’s feast or famine with Baracael, and we’ve been fortunate that so far, it’s been more feast.


• Marcio Lassiter is pretty good, reminds me of Jeffrey Cariaso.


• Dongguan coach Brian Goorijan gave high marks for the Gilas offense, but I think two things that really make the Gilas so effective on the offensive end doesn’t necessarily have to do with putting the ball in the basket: they never turn the ball over, and they always have floor balance. International teams like Jordan and Iran make a lot of hay off the break, but the Gilas offense is geared to prevent just that. This is also the reason the Powerade team looked so bad against these international teams in the Jones Cup; poorly-prepared teams tend to turn over the ball a lot, which leads to a lot of easy baskets on the other end.
  
  That’s almost never the case for Smart Gilas, or at least, its man-to-man offense. Their zone offense, however, could use a little more fine-tuning.


• Elsewhere on the Internet, people have been bagging on Gilas about their defense. I tend to disagree; I think they have a great defensive system in place, one that even Talk N Text has adopted too. They do a great job of cutting the court in half, preventing all-important swing passes from the strong side to the weak side, and clogging the middle effectively.
  
  They could still do a better job of cleaning up the defensive glass, and it would help if they forced a few more turnovers. But I’m not sure they can do that with the personnel they have on the team currently. They just don’t have the size or the length to do both at a high level.


• Sure, they only played against a Dongguan team that was still trying to find its way, but the Talk N Text Tropang Texters looked like the best team in the tourney; their offense was very crisp, and they were much more active and effective on defense.
  
  It makes me wonder: Are we underrating our PBA teams? Even Ginebra, which has been mediocre in the ongoing PBA Fiesta Conference, was able to stay toe-to-toe with Jordan, despite the fact that they looked like they were treating the game like a half-assed scrimmage. I’m not talking about star-studded PBA-organized national teams, but PBA teams per se. Are they better than we give them credit for?
  
  It also makes me curious about just how effective some guys who probably wouldn’t have a chance to get picked for Asian-level competitions would do. Will LA Tenorio be able to get in the lane and loft floaters against Asian teams? Will Marc Pingris’ madman act work against bigger and heftier opponents? Can Sol Mercado barrel his way to the ring? Will opposing point guards in Asia panic when Paul Artadi harasses them in the backcourt?
  
  The kneejerk answer is no… but unless we see it on the court, we’ll never know, wouldn’t we?


• Then again, JC Intal probably wouldn’t be able to get to the lane so easily if Jordan’s injured big men made the Manila trip. Rasheim Wright is reportedly also still recovering from a knee injury. The Gilas victory over Jordan is impressive, but I hope no one’s getting over-confident over the result.


• Also, the refereeing was clearly slanted in favor of the local teams; the foreign teams probably didn’t mind so much, because these things are par for the course for these types of tournaments. But for a country that always rails against bad officiating, man, we sure can eat up loads upon loads of lutong macao if it benefits our team.

Philippine basketball has started to develop a small but vibrant community on Twitter, and Fire Quinito’s newest feature, The Sweetest Tweets, round up the best messages, in 140 characters or less.



Former Ginebra import Rod Nealy, who led his new team Rain or Shine to back-to-back wins in the ongoing Fiesta Conference, is apparently not a fan of Ginebra’s Denham Brown, who was cut, or should I say exported, by the team this week.



Barako center Robby Reyes shows a little sense of humor after a game wherein Derby Ace import Cliff Brown served him a NASTY facial. That one ought to make it to all the highlight reels this week.



Rain or Shine’s Sol Mercado has a request for his co-player of the week, James Yap. Hey, now that James is single, maybe he and Sol could hang out and go clubbing or something.



Ok, I don’t think Rick gets the hang of this whole sports tweeting thing just yet.



Wise words from the guy who runs our national basketball program. Magaling siguro siyang sumulat ng love letter.