FOLLOWING its historic feat, Strong Group Athletics (SGA) is eyeing to bring a Jones Cup-like invitational tournament here in the Philippines soon.
Strong Group just became the country’s first back-to-back champion in the Jones Cup and what could be a greater venture next than hosting its own in Manila against similar if not a better international cast.
“We haven’t figured out what’s next, but me, Boss Frank, and Boss Jacob Lao are talking about potentially having an invitational in Manila,” said SGA head coach Charles Tiu after conquering Taiwan once again.
“I’ve talked to some teams and they’re interested, so let’s see. But for now, we are just going to enjoy the moment here.”
SGA scored an 8-0 sweep of the Jones Cup, an annual invitational tournament in Taiwan since 1977, in which the Philippines has been a constant participant.
In 44 years of its participation, the Philippines has won eight championships highlighted by the only back-to-back feat of SGA for the second-most harvest in Jones Cup behind the 16 titles of the United States.
SGA, which won eight of its nine games by double digits, made it happen behind a mixture of local standouts spearheaded by Kiefer Ravena, Rhenz Abando, Javi Gomez de Liaño and Dave Ildefonso as well as a bevy of banner imports led by former NBA stud Andre Roberson.
The Philippine representative’s lone single-digit win came against Malaysia, 106-98, after dominating Chinese-Taipei Blue (67-56), Japan Developmental (79-67), Qatar (81-54), Australia’s NBL1 Rising Stars (91-75), Chinese-Taipei White (107-75), Bahrain (92-68), and UAE (87-62).
“It’s special, especially because I don’t know if we will be able to have this group again. We don’t know where our other guys will be next year,” said Mr. Tiu, who has now won 16 straight games for SGA in the Jones Cup.
“But we had a great group of guys — guys committed to winning and sacrificing for the team. It’s rare to have this kind of chemistry and character guys on the team.” — John Bryan Ulanday