South finals
THE Talisay City Aquastars and Sibonga will square off in the Game 1 of the best-of-three South Division finals of the 2018 Cebu Governor’s Cup Inter-Cities/Municipalities Basketball Tournament tonight at the Talisay City Sports Complex in Talisay City, south Cebu.
Game time is 6 p.m.
The Aquastars are seen as favorites to win the title, owing to its unbeaten 10-0 (win-loss) record going into the finals.
“We managed to stay unbeaten because of the players’ attitude. They want to win. They are serious in this tournament,” said Talisay City head coach Rey Gurrea.
Talisay will also have a slight advantage starting the series at their homecourt. But Gurrea doesn’t want his players to be too confident, especially against a Sibonga team that believes it has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“There’s no homecourt advantage for us. We’ve beaten Sibonga twice, once in the quarterfinals and once in the semifinals, but we don’t have room for complacency so we have to get ready for game one,” added Gurrea, a former University of San Jose-Recoletos Jaguar who also once played for M. Lhuillier.
Sibonga’s head coach Marianito Bugtai, also a town councilor, admitted his team is an underdog in this series but believes they are capable of pulling off a surprise.
“A lot of people believe we have a fighting chance. We have to make adjustments both defense and offense if we want to win the series,” Bugtai said.
“Yes, we are underdogs and we accepted that as a challenge.”
Game 2 will be on July 6 at the Sibonga Sports Complex. If the series extends to a Game 3, it will be held at the Cebu Coliseum.
The winner of this series will take on the winner in the North Division title which is being contested by San Francisco, Camotes and Consolacion.