Philippine - Tanquingcen welcomes Serbian coach

From: www.manilastandardtoday.com
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By: Rey Joble

SIOT Tanquingcen, the soft-spoken San Miguel Beer mentor, holds his fellow coaches in the Philippine Basketball Association in high regard. He believes anyone of them can handle the Philippine men’s basketball team that will see action in the 2009 FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship.

While most of his peers are opposing the hiring of Serbian coach Rajko Toroman, who led Iran to the FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship last year, Tanquingcen thinks it’s high time to try and give a foreign coach a shot of leading the national squad to an Asian title—and possibly see another coaching great in the mold of American mentor Ron Jacobs.

“I think there’s nothing wrong with that,” Tanquingcen told Standard Today. “We can always look back at the accomplishments of coach Ron [Jacobs] and his contributions to Philippine Basketball.”

Tanquingcen was an understudy of coach Ron Jacobs along with Jong Uichico. As a player and as a student of Jacobs, Tanquingcen has learned valuable things he had never seen in many years of playing the game.

“My coaching influence came mostly from coach Ron,” said Tanquingcen, who won two titles handling Ginebra before he transferred to San Miguel Beer. “From the basics up to the detailed context in the play book, I got it from coach Ron. But there are many things I’ve learned from coach Ron when valuing the team.”