Alab’s Ride Leads to Cebu

Alab’s Ride Leads to Cebu

It sure looks like it’s been a very interesting ride for San Miguel Alab Pilipinas in the Asean Basketball League. The ABL ends its regular season/classification phase with four games today including Alab’s away game in Saigon. The playoffs start on Friday, March 29. And yes, Alab will play its first ever home playoff game in Cebu on Friday at the Hoops Dome. Their opponent will be known tonight after all games have been played (more on that later). That has been the good news so far for Alab but I’m not sure if the ride is something which Coach Jimmy Alapag and the Alab management has been ecstatic about.

The Cebu sports media with the guests: Andrew Teh, Charlie Dy, Jimmy Alapag & Dondon Hontiveros.

After a hot start that saw the team breezing through its games, Alab was almost unbeatable and was at the top of the team standings for most of the regular season up until around last week when they ran into some turbulence. The major factor for the slump were the injuries to key players Renaldo Balkman (concussion), Caelan Tiongson (ankle), Brandon Rosser (knee) and Lawrence Domigo (knee). We don’t even know if Alab will have a complete roster tonight when they play Siagon in Vietnam. The good news though, is that Alab is safely into the playoffs as the second seed, and this is the more important part. It may not be the top seed, but at this point, it doesn't matter now, does it? After all, Alab wasn’t the top seed last year and went on to win the championship. Nothing new to the team at all. To recall, Alab finished the elimination round in third place last year and had to go through the quarterfinals (2-0 over Saigon) and semifinals (2-0 over Hong Kong), before winning the best-of-five championship series, 3-2, over Mono Vampire Thailand. Can Alab do a repeat of last year? I’m 100% sure they can.

As of yesterday, March 23, Formosa is at the top of the team standings with an 19-6 record, followed by #2 Alab (18-7), #3 Singapore (15-10), #4 CLS Knights Indonesia (15-11), #5 Macau Black Bears (14-12), #6 Saigon (13-12), #7 Hong Kong Eastern (12-13) and #8 Mono Vampire (11-14). The playoffs follows the 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 pairings in the first round with the higher seed getting the homecourt advantage. Thus, Alab will face either Hong Kong Eastern or Saigon, depending on the results of the last games of these two teams. Siagon faces Alab while Hong Kong Eastern plays against the Wolf Warriors tonight. If Saigon beats Alab, Alab plays Hong Kong on Friday. But if Hong Kong wins and Saigon loses, both will be tied with 13-13 records, and the tie-breaker will be applied to decide who takes the sixth and seventh seed spots. At this point, I don't think the coaching staff is thinking about who to play in the playoffs for now. They’ll take on any of these teams. Their major concern is to ensure that everyone is healthy come playoffs time when it matters most. With Domingo out for the season, the team is praying that Balkman, Tiongson and Rosser will be ready for Friday’s game. You can bet that Alab fans are also praying that the team has a healthy roster when it plays at the Hoops Dome on Friday.

The biggest news for us Cebu fans is that Alab has chosen to play its first playoff home game in Cebu at the Hoops Dome, a first for both Alab and Cebu. I hope the Cebu fans realize that this is a historical event and that they go out and support Alab like they did in Alab’s previous two home games in January and February. The Hoops Dome was packed; tickets were sold out, and the fans made it a festive atmosphere by cheering their lungs out for Alab. Alab’s reply? Two dominating games of inspired ball before a proud and loud homecrowd. The time has come to double the intensity of the homecourt atmosphere now that it’s playoffs time. Do or die is the peg and Alab simply can’t afford to lose at home as it seeks to defend its title. Cebu should go all out and support Alab for choosing to play here when they could’ve easily played in Manila. One factor going for us is that top-level basketball has been quiet in Cebu, Without a long-running basketball league outside of the CESAFI and the PBA not coming back to Cebu, fans have been hungry for basketball of the pro/commercial kind and so far, only the ABL has bothered to come to Cebu.

Coach Jimmy Alapag, when talking to the local media, never tires of saying that playing in Cebu is “special” to him when he was a player and now as a coach, and he relishes the thought that his Alab players get to taste the Cebu experience as well. A huge part of this I’m sure is due to the love and support that they get from Cebu (aside from the good food and the beaches). I’d like to add that for Cebu fans, this is also a special and rare experience as we hardly have any basketball of this level being played in Cebu. Everything is all aligned for a night or nights of exciting basketball.

And who knows? If they win on Friday, maybe another Cebu home game can be played in the semifinals? Then the finals? What a ride it would be indeed for Alab and Cebu. Alab Cebu. Alab Pilpinas.