Even us fans seem to be thorned between development and doing well in the u16, 17, 18. Let us back track. It was not only Alas who was the reason we were able to place 3rd in the Asia u16. It was the defense of our quick bigs: Daja, Morales and Diao. It was the guards; Ludovice, Velaszuez and even Amos. It was also our maligned guards that brought us to the WC17.
I think we cant escape small guards. Velasquez at 5’11-6’0 is not even a small guard by Pinoy standards. Fact of the matter is we need the best of the smaller guards to win until we develop our bigger guards.
Even Tab had SJ and RJ. But he used only one of them in each game of the OQT. In the meantime he was training bigger PGs in Suerte, Tungcab and Ramos. He was training bigger wings in Navarro, Balti and Tamayo.
Tab tried to balance both development and winning. He was the only coach who was able to make JF lose a lot of weight to improve his lateral defense.
I think Josh was able to get one part of the equation right. After his failure with the Harris Mahmoud team he formed a team that could compete against Japan and Korea. Part of it was getting bigger and stronger attackers in Alas and Amos. But the more important thing I think was getting long and mobile forwards to switch and stop the mobile bigs of JP and Korea. A thing that Mahmoud couldnt do and Harris was too temperamental to do consistently.
Josh’s u16 team was a resounding success. But the U17 was a different story. With or without Alas we would have lost. Here is where the development should have been. Daja and Morales should have played wing more. Another big should have been picked to play with them. De Liano was useless defensively. They could have been a nominal 4 but the system should have allowed them to bring up the ball and initiate the offense.
It was clear early on in the U17 WC that our smaller guards were overmatched. But guys like Daja and specially Morales matchedup with their wings very well. In the few times Morales brought up the ball we had cross matches that could be exploited. It should have been a point of attack. However with De Liano practically useless the 3 bigs were already maxed out. Another tall big with at least decent post defense and rebounding could have helped and allowed Daja and Morales have the energy to play wing. Letting them do dribble hand offs to guards who were too short to have good looks was not working. Letting them drive the ball, shoot open 3s or with screens would not have been worse and would have been good exposure for their seniors team prospective wing position.
