Lapu Lapu City guard Rendell Senining. CHOOKS TO GO PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—One of the players involved in the ugly incident in the Pilipinas VisMin Super Cup aired his team’s side in the much-maligned game between Siquijor and ARQ Builders-Lapu-Lapu City.
Heroes guard Rendell Senining said it was the Mystics’ own doing why the game between them turned into a back-and-forth of bizarre moments that basketball fans saw as disrespectful to the sport.
In an interview with former University of the Philippines star and now sports analyst Mikee Reyes, Senining said that they had no hand in the controversial game and that they were only returning what Siquijor gave them during the match.
“Going into the second quarter, that’s when we felt that the game was changing for the worse, our coaches wanted to talk to their coaches and tell the opposing team’s players to play properly,” said Senining in Filipino. “It’s a bad cycle, it’s disrespectful to the game and personally I love the game.”
“My teammates and I were offended and they really love the game. When we realized what they were doing, we thought that what they served us we’ll serve it back.”
“No game-fixing happened… We’re not perfect. Our coaches and the players are new to the league and new to being pros. We didn’t handle it right. We handled it poorly. But it was never our intention to disrespect or fix the game.”
Senining, who was the one that changed shooting hands during his free throw attempts, said they wanted to stop the game and they figured out that the best thing to do is try and do what Siquijor was doing.
“What they served us, then we’ll serve it back so that the commissioner will realize that the game was going out of control,” said Senining. “It was really bad and we wanted to walk away but that would just take away our integrity.”
He added that they were shouting from the bench to stop the game because of the perceived disrespect they got from the Mystics.
Nonetheless, Senining and some of his teammates were suspended and fined for their actions. He was fined P30,000 and was suspended for the first round of the competition.
Meanwhile, the Siquijor Mystics were banned from the tournament even as players and coaches are barred from joining any teams in the future.