The Cebu City Sharks team huddling up around head coach Titing Manalili. CDN Digital photo | Jonas Panerio
Cebu City, Philippines—With the third season of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League set to open a little over a month from now, the Cebu City Sharks-Casino Ethyl Alcohol are slowly shaping up with six new players joining their fold.
The new players are former St. Francis of Assisi point guard Michael Cenita, former Arellano University wingman Kraniel Villoria, veteran forward Jan Villaver, former Cesafi Mythical Five member John Reel Saycon, ex-University of San Jose-Recoletos ace John Ubalde and former PBA guard Eliud Poligrates.
Set to make a return to a Sharks squad that made it all the way to the playoffs in spite of a very slow start are Jaybie Mantilla, RJ Dinolan, Kevin Villafranca, Victor Nunez, Harold Cincoflores, Joel Lee Yu, Gayford Rodriguez, William McAloney, Rhaffy Octobre, Edrian Lao and their lone all star Patrick Jan Cabahug.
“We have so much faith in our original players. That’s why we opted to retain most of the players from last season’s team,” said the team’s spokesperson, Jerome Calatrava. “If you take a look at our match-up against Davao in the playoffs, we were right there but we just lacked perimeter shooting. That is something we wanted to address this season.”
Sharks head coach Titing Manalili, said he has been impressed with what he is seeing from his team so far in the three weeks that they have trained together. However, he begged off from drawing any conclusions until he actually sees his team in action this season.
“Is it a better team? It’s too early to tell. Perhaps after we play two or three games next season, I will be able to give you an answer,” said the veteran mentor.
“Right now, I’m just content that we were able to plug some holes in our lineup from last season. Right now, we have a bunch of guys who are already familiar with our system and have already experienced what’s it like to compete at that level,” Manalili added. /bmjo