Philippine Basketball: A Historical Perspective (Part 2 – The Early 60s)

My addiction for Philippine Basketball started in 1967, when I glued my ears against our old, but trusty radio to listen to a static-filled commentary on the Asian Basketball Conference (ABC) Finals featuring the Philippines and host-nation South Korea. It was a proud moment for me, as a young 10-year old kid, when the Philippines held-off the Koreans to win 83-80, and retake the Asian cage supremacy. This would kick-off my enduring love affair with Philippine Basketball, and sports in general. Here, we look back at the 60s, at a time when the Philippines still stood proudly as Asia’s basketball kings.

The 60s saw the Philippines still clinging on to basketball supremacy in Asia. We took the Asian Basketball Conference (ABC) crown in 1960, followed this up with a gold medal in the Asian Games in 1962, and topped that with another ABC gold in 1963. Among the standouts then, with Caloy Loyzaga’s exit from active cage service in 1964, were Carlos Badion, who was adjudged MVP in the 1960 ABC; plus the upcoming Ysmael Steel scoring machine, Narciso Bernardo; and his perennial defender from the arch-rival club Yco, Ed Ocampo.

In the local scene, the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA) was the most popular basketball league in the country, with the fierce rivalry between the Yco Painters and the Ysmael Steel Admirals whetting the appetite of a basketball-crazy nation. The 60s was the era of the Ysmael-Yco cage duel. Ysmael had a stable of renowned national players that included Narciso Bernardo, Adriano Papa Jr, Jake Rojas, Jimmy Mariano, Alberto Reynoso and Orly Bauzon. Yco’s top players, on the other hand, included topnotch stars Bobby Jaworski, Danny Florencio, Sonny Reyes, Freddie Webb, Ed Ocampo, Elias Tolentino and Edgardo Roque.

Abroad however, it was now becoming clear that the taller and heftier quintets in the Asian region were beginning to learn the ropes and inching closer. Japan took first crack at the Philippines’ enviable record, upsetting our Nationals by taking the ABC crown in 1965. Philippines had earlier breezed through the Japanese squad 74-54 in the no-bearing preliminary round. In the all-important Championship Round however, the Japanese outdid themselves, upsetting the over-confident Pinoys and ending the Filipinos’ amazing run of championships, 71-65.

The following year, in the Asian Games of 1966, Israel emerged as Asia’s new basketball kingpin. And to make matters worse, the Philippines would end up a lowly 6th, the worst finish ever for a Philippine squad at that time. If the previous year’s upset to Japan was considered an affront to national pride, this 6th place finish was certainly a disaster! Never before had the Pinoys, renowned to be the best basketeers in this corner of the world, tasted such ignominy. For the first time, the Philippines was without either an ABC or an Asian Games crown.

Thus, the venerable Caloy Loyzaga, now retired but still actively involved in basketball as a coach of the famed Yco Painters, was called in to lead the campaign to regain lost pride. Thus, in the ABC championship in 1967 in hostile Seoul, coach Loyzaga’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ prepared hard to gift a distraught Filipino nation with a credible finish, with the gold medal the ultimate dream.

True enough, the final game against the hosts Sokors was filled with drama. Both the Philippines and Korea had raced through the round-robin affair unscathed, with both toting identical 8 wins – no loss cards. This last game of the last day of the round-robin then would decide who were going home with the crown. Korea had their prolific scoring machine, Shin Dong Pa. On top of that, they had a wildly partisan hometown crowd egging them on.

The game was touch-and-go till the very last second. But in the end, the Philippines would win 83-80, thanks to Danny Florencio’s heroics in the last 48 seconds of play in the game. They would survive six disqualifications on fouls, with the daring Danny Florencio finally sent in for the first time with less than a minute left, after the squad’s 6th foul-out. Lo and behold, the last-minute entry would account for the team’s last 4 points, to win the crown for the Philippines, 83-80! Nobody had expected coach Loyzaga to have 1 last trick up his sleeve when he called Florencio to duty. And deliver he did, in the grandest of ways! Bernardo and a young Bobby Jaworski would be selected to the Mythical Five. And the Philippines was back on top.

But this was all short-lived. In the next ABC Championship in 1969, South Korea turned the tables on the Philippines, clinching the crown for the first time, with an emphatic 95-86 win in the final game of the tournament. The Koreans were led by Shin Dong Pa once again. Added to that, Japan – led by their sharpshooting Masatomo Taniguchi – once again scored a pulsating 78-77 come-from-behind win, relegating our cagers to a bronze medal finish.

The following year, in the 1970 Asian Games, South Korea once again captured the gold, despite suffering a solitary loss to the Philippines in the Final Round. An erratic Philippines would end up 5th after following that superb win over Korea with sloppy losses to Taiwan, Japan and Israel. Once again, the Philippines was without an Asian crown.

To be continued…

Cover photo courtesy of: Gilbert Battung Library. Other photos courtesy of Spin.ph, Facebook, Rappler, Sports Byte Philippines. For a closer look, just click on the pics.