Terrafirma struggling as Standhardinger deals with leadership woes

Four games into the new season, Terrafirma is back to its old, horrendous self: Not a single victory to show for in the PBA Governors’ Cup.

According to Christian Standhardinger, it’s simply a case of tough luck.

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“I mean, we lost like five players,” he told a pair of reporters on Sunday night at Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila, shortly after the Dyip absorbed a 124-103 defeat at the hands of Magnolia.

“[One] of our players didn’t get a release. We lost one player to [South Korea]. Our import was changed in the last game. Now, Juami (Tiongson) is out, and I think we have another injury in our team. We have bad luck,” he went on.

Terrafirma has been struggling to find a groove and an identity after the departure of its three aces, Javi Gomez de Liaño, Stephen Holt, and Isaac Go. Not helping was the continued absence of No. 10 pick Mark Nonoy, who is still fulfilling duties with Iloilo in the MPBL.

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Against the Hotshots, things turned for the worse when cornerstone Tiongson hurt his hamstring and Kemark Cariño suffered a groin problem.

And while those developments are just unfortunate, Standhardinger also feels he’s partly to blame for the Dyip’s woes.

“There’s no excuse,” the four-time champion and two-time Best Player of the Conference (BPC) pointed out. “The first two games, my leadership was not where it should’ve been.”

Starting point

The do-it-all forward indeed has been far from his usual dominant self, scoring below his usual, 20-point average in the past three games and even putting up only nine points in a 107-91 loss to Meralco.

Fortunately, Standhardinger has experience dealing with the same issues, having been NorthPort’s spearhead in the past. The Filipino-German ace, back in the 2019 Governors’ Cup, led an undermanned, 8th-seeded Batang Pier squad past top-ranked NLEX to reach only its second semifinals in franchise history. He also won his first BPC during that tournament.

“Maybe I need to be a little bit more vocal with everything, and really get everybody going. It’s just such a change to come from one team to another,” he admitted.

“I need to be more vocal with how I think we could improve and how I can help my teammates, and how we can put ourselves in the best position to at least make it close. “

Standhardinger believes the stand against Magnolia is a good starting point not only for him but for the rest of Terrafirma.

“I think we showed a lot of pride. We were down (to Magnolia) [38] points and we [tried to come back]. We just have to bring that together in the next game. Even against Meralco, we were within 10 points and in the end—the last five minutes, last seven minutes—that’s only when they got that lead (big),” he said.

“We have very talented players, we have good players. I just need to step up my leadership a little bit.”

How well Standhardinger follows through his words could be seen when Terrafirma goes up against TNT on Sept. 5. INQ

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