Luigi Trillo’s goal: Build on Norman Black’s ‘significant achievements’

Luigi Trillo is the new head coach of the Meralco Bolts. –PBA IMAGES

Building on the gains of previous season is the goal Luigi Trillo would like to accomplish now that he’s tasked to call the shots for Meralco following a coaching shuffle on Monday.

“We have a good group of guys who are very hardworking and are excited for this next chapter,” Trillo said when asked of his appointment.

Trillo, who a decade ago won his first Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) championship when he steered Alaska to the 2013 Commissioner’s Cup title, hopes to do the same for a Meralco franchise that had reached the Finals four times under Norman Black.

Black will remain with Meralco as consultant while Trillo will get help from Serbian coach Nenad Vucinic, who was named active consultant.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunity. I look forward to working closely with coach Nenad and the whole team. We hope to build on coach Norman’s significant achievements of the past nine years,” said Trillo.

The new setup is a page Meralco took out of the playbook of sister team TNT, the winner of the recent Governors’ Cup that put a close to the league’s 47th season.

TNT emerged champion with coach Jojo Lastimosa being the man in charge with Serbian Lale Gorunovic as active consultant. Chot Reyes took on a senior consultancy role, at least for the just-concluded conference, due to his focus on the Gilas Pilipinas program.

The Bolts have shown they can succeed under Trillo, who briefly handled the team on an interim basis in the Philippine Cup when Black left for the United States for personal reasons.

Under his stewardship, Meralco was able to reach the semifinals of the All-Filipino tournament by way of a thrilling quarterfinal win over Barangay Ginebra.

Trillo’s run of success even led to his name being floated to take over NLEX following Yeng Guiao’s departure. The vacant seat was eventually filled by Frankie Lim.

Black steps aside after a tenure that started in 2014, slowly turning the Bolts into a team that consistently competes for a championship.

Meralco has reached the semis in six of the last seven conferences.

But Meralco lost all four of its trips to the Finals to Barangay Ginebra, all in the season-ending Governors’ Cup.