SWU Cobras practice at the City Sports Club Cebu with coach Mike Reyes. CDN Digital photo | Brian J. Ochoa
MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—While everyone’s excited to see the Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma Cobras return to the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) men’s basketball competition, coach Mike Reyes wants to temper expectations.
The Cobras, the 2019 men’s champions, will be returning from a leave of absence but Reyes says there’s not much to expect from the team.
READ: SWU-Phinma dethrones UV
“It’s very hard to come back after a one-year absence,” Reyes said in an interview with CDN Digital’s Sportstalk.
“But we’re prepared to be able to compete,” he added.
With Reyes in the weekly show were his players Heider Bilao and John Joseph Evardo.
Reyes says what’s challenging with the team he has now is that they’re all starting from scratch.
“We are very questionable right now because of the players that are available.
All the players that come to us are the leftovers, the players who were not accepted by other teams,” he said.
SWU target: To get better
Still, Reyes and his team is working extra hard to achieve their goal this year, which is to be competitive.
“Our main objective is to be able to compete,” he said.
“All teams target the semis, ours is to get better,” he added.
Reyes even divulged that during practice, the team doesn’t mention the word “win.”
“In our team, we don’t mention the word win. It puts too much pressure on the players. We just want to compete,” he said of his “very young team.”
Bilao, meanwhile, echoed Reyes’ statement.
SWU Cobras practice at City Sports Club Cebu with coach Mike Reyes. CDN Digital photo | Brian J. Ochoa
“We need to prove more na maka compete mi kay right now maglisud gyud mi kai ang team chemistry [is not there] kay bago pa ba,” he said.
But Evardo is optimistic that the team will get better.
“Kayod lang gyud mi sa practice namo,” he said.
Asked who they think are the teams to beat this season, all three had the same answer—the University of the Visayas (UV) and the University of Cebu (UC) with a special mention of the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF).
UV is the reigning Cesafi champion, beating UC in two games last year. /rcg