SINGAPORE—Sinag Pilipinas opened defense of the men’s basketball crown in the 28th Southeast Asian Games in style Wednesday but coach Tab Baldwin wasn’t satisfied.
The highly rated Philippines men’s basketball team played just hard enough before tearing Indonesia apart, 81-52, to jump-start its quest for the gold medal before a sellout pro-Filipino crowd at the OCBC Arena here.
Kiefer Ravena had 16 points, Troy Rosario added 15 and 11 rebounds and Almond Vosotros had 14 in a veritable warm-up exercise for the Filipinos, whose naturalized player Marcus Douthit was used sparingly.
“I was a little discouraged and disappointed I thought we just didn’t play Filipino basketball,” said Baldwin. “We’re slow, we weren’t aggressive and our defense looked like it was a shadow of what it was when we won the (Southeast Asian Basketball Association championship).”
In contrast, the PH women’s squad was unforgiving with an 100-55 flogging of Vietnam to redeem itself from a heartbreaking loss to defending champion Thailand the other day.
The scores:
PH WOMEN 100—Lim 17, Castro 13, Bernardino 10, Sambile 9, Resultay 9, Palmera 9, Bernardo 8, Jose 7, Gupilan 6, Almazan 6, Arayi 3, Roman 3.
VIETNAM 55—Huynh 15, Pham B. 10, Nguyen T. 6, Trat 5, Linh 4, Pham T. 4, Bui 3, Truong 2, Nguyen B. 2, Lu 2, Luu 2.
Quarters: 20-13, 36-29, 68-40, 100-55
PH MEN 81—Ravena 16, Rosario 15, Vosotros 14, Ferrer 8, Torres 8, Douthit 6, Khobuntin 5, Belo 5, Thompson 4, Jalalon 0, Amer 0, Rivero 0.
INDONESIA 52—Sanjaya 9, Enguio 8, Gunawan R. 8, Santosa 6, Dhyaksa 6, Wisnu 3, Indrawan 3, Kurniawan 3, Wuysang 2, Putra 2, Sitepu 2.
Quarters: 14-4, 35-24, 60-34, 81-52