Star coach wants team to move forward, get better next conference
SEEING a rookie coach leading his team to two straight semifinals stints isn’t bad after all, but for Chito Victolero, the head mentor of the Star Hotshots, their performance isn’t good enough. They could be better.
“Our performance is good for a young team. But we cannot make it as an excuse, that we’re a young team, that we’ve only been together just recently or Ping (Marc Pingris) is not playing. If there’s always an excuse, we won’t grow as a team. No excuses. We lost, but we need to stay together. We need to bounce back and prepare for the next conference. Hopefully, what we will be able to overcome what we’ve experienced,” Mr. Victolero told BusinessWorld in an interview.
The Hotshots came so close to making it to the championship round, nearly beating the mighty San Miguel Beermen in their best-of-five semifinals series, an experience which similarly happened to them last conference when they fell a game away from reaching the finals before losing to Barangay Ginebra.
Against the Beermen, the Hotshots had their rivals on the ropes in Game 3, but the more experienced San Miguel squad was able to escape courtesy of Marcio Lassiter’s dagger triple.
Had the Hotshots prevail in that game, the series would turn in a different tone.
Mr. Victolero doesn’t want to dwell on heartbreaking setbacks they’ve experienced but wanted his team to move forward and grow.
“That’s what we want to avoid. We don’t want to dwell on experiences like that,” added Mr. Victolero. “That’s why I’m telling my players to move forward. It was also painful for me but we have to move forward. Our experience last conference was also painful in Game 6 of our semis game against Ginebra. We came out flat in Game 7 and we had a bad game. That’s what we want to overcome. We need to get over the hump in situations like that. If we dwell on these things, bad things really happen in the next game, we always lose a game,” added Mr. Victolero. “These experiences is part of our journey to become successful in the future.”
Mr. Victolero said he’s now identified the right import for the squad, though he didn’t divulge the name as they’re still negotiating with him. He’s looking at an import who is a good fit in their defensiveoriented system that starts its up tempo game.
“Our system is more on defense, so we want someone who could play solid defense, but of course, we want to bring in somebody who can also help us in offense,” he added. —