Beermen tweak battle plan
San Miguel Beer is planning to come up with a mixture of old and new systems when it marches to the Governors’ Cup of the Philippine Basketball Association this month. Beermen team manager Gee Abanilla yesterday said they are planning to tweak their system by combining the game plan of head coach Leo Austria with that of assistant coach Jorge Gallent when they see action in the season-ending conference.
The Beermen used a different approach when Gallent took over from the latter part of the eliminations until the playoffs to substitute for Austria who got infected by Covid-19. Austria returned but the Beermen fell prey to a very solid Bay Area squad in the best-of-five semifinal encounter. Now, the Beermen management is planning to integrate both systems to come up with a winning formula. “We just have to integrate both systems,” Abanilla said.
“Coach Leo is very open to that.” With import Marcus Weathers already settled, the Beermen couldn’t wait to return to action and reassert their dominance in Asia’s pioneering professional league.
Weathers was originally tapped to play for the Beermen for the East Asia Super League, which was pushed back to March this year.
Weathers, who worked out with the Phoenix Suns last season, is a product of Southern Methodist Mustangs.
He will finally get a chance to experience playing professional basketball and the Beermen are excited to bring in a young player on board to shore up their veteran-laden squad.
“He looks okay in practice, but then again, it remains to be seen until we’ve seen it in actual games,” Abanilla said.
“He also has good attitude.”
While playing for the Mustangs, Weathers averaged 12.12 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.
The Beermen are ready to roll out the barrel in the Governors’ Cup with six-time Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo and two-time scoring champion Terrence Romeo back in harness.
They expect to have big men Mo Tautuaa and Vic Manuel returning soon in time for the third conference. Both players were sidelined by separate injuries when the Beermen were seeing action in the playoffs of the Commissioner’s Cup.