Indonesia satisfied with 2nd place finish, eyes improvement

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net

Finishing second in the 2017 Seaba Championship isn’t that too bad for Indonesia.

After all, the country is using the regional competition as its warmup for the 2017 Southeast Asian Games this August in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

And for longtime playmaker Mario Wuysang, the silver medal finish is a great indicator on how far the team can go in the SEA Games, especially that he’s looking at this as his curtain call with the national team.

“I’m gonna play in the SEA Games and that’s gonna be my last SEA Games,” the 38-year-old guard bared on Thursday. “This is my last Seaba. I played in so many of them already. I played in Fiba Asia already and it’s gonna be my last one.”

Wuysang and the Indonesian squad threw their best punches on the Philippines’ way in the final game of the Seaba tilt, keeping themselves within striking distance in the first four minutes of the game.

However, Gilas Pilipinas was just too strong and too quick for its regional rival and cruised to the 97-64 victory to successfully defend its Seaba crown.

READ: Fiery Blatche carries Gilas to Seaba sweep

For Wuysang, he’s glad to have battled a clearly superior team in the Philippines, saying, “Gilas is a tough team and we knew that coming in. We respect them a lot. We know they’re preparing for something bigger. We just wanted to go out there and compete today, give it our best, and put up a fight. That’s the best that we can do.”

Even naturalized player Jamarr Johnson wouldn’t deny that fact. That’s why he’s still satisfied with how Indonesia performed in Seaba.

“I knew coming in that it was going to be a challenging experience for us. They’re bigger than us in so many ways but our management is satisfied with how we performed,” he said.

And the two are optimistic that this experience will just help the Indonesians going forward.

“I just feel like for the SEA Games, Indonesia’s goal is to get second. For us to get second is satisfying for our team, for our management. If that’s what they are happy with then I will do my best to be okay with that as well,” said Johnson.

Wuysang added: “We’re just building chemistry. We worked on our chemistry, just on our system mainly because we haven’t practiced much as a team, as a unit because we all play in different teams just like in Gilas. We take a lot from this.” IDL