A training camp in Las Vegas and Serbia and a pocket tournament in Kaohsiung are in store for the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons within the next two months.
The Fighting Maroons’ exposures abroad will be done to help them get sharper and in shape when the coming 82nd University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball season gets under way this September.
“The objective of the pre-season games and activities and is to get them to play together. Because they are going to be my lineup,” said Fighting Maroons coach Bo Perasol.
After reaching the finals of the 81st season last year against the Ateneo Blue Eagles, the Fighting Maroons are gearing for a return trip to the finals this season.
Their two-week visit to the Joe Abunassar camp in Las Vegas is expected to happen in the second week of June.
Perasol hopes that Cameroonian big man Bright Akhuetie will be able to join them once he gets his visa requirements done.
A weeklong cagefest is set this July in Taiwan for the Fighting Maroons before the squad goes to Europe for another camp in Serbia this August.
“We can’t get through season with six or seven players just playing. And it’s going to be a long season,” added Perasol.
He noted that back injuries have been bugging Akhuetie, Juan Gomez de Liano and one of the two new guys in the team, Kobe Paras.
As for Ricci Rivero, who moved over from the La Salle Green Archers two years, he is trying to recover from a knee injury.
Perasol and the Fighting Maroons got together with their supporters yesterday the Manuel L. Quezon Hall of the UP-Diliman campus following a contract signing with one of the team’s new supporters this year, Palawan Pawnshop and Express Padala.
Palawan Pawnshop and Express Padala, through their vice president for finance Lilian Castro-Selda, signed a deal with team management, led by Atty. Agaton Uvero, who leads the Nowhere to Go But Up group.
“We are excited because we are a UP family, including my parents, who were activists in the 70s,” said Selda, who added that they will also extend their assistance to the UP Lady Maroons in women’s basketball.