Losing by a margin of double digits in a ballgame is truly a bitter pill to swallow, so losing by over 100 points in a match is so indescribable that the term “humiliation” might even be an understatement.
But not for Myanmar head coach Ten Kok Heng.
The young and inexperienced Burmese squad received a rude welcome in their 2017 SEABA Championship for Men opener, losing to the star-studded Gilas Pilipinas by 107 points, 147-40, Friday night at the SMART-Araneta Coliseum.
But despite the uneventful night, Heng still remains proud of his wards.
“Philippines… Everybody… they are two levels above us. But I’m proud of my boys because they never gave up,” said Heng, a Malaysian national and a member of the Malaysian team that had stunned the Philippines in the 1989 SEA Games.
“In terms of size, physicality, we totally lost to them. I have nothing to say.”
The lopsided affair was understandable. Myanmar’s basketball program has always been a mystery, after all. They have never joined the regional cagefest since its inception in 1994 — until this year in Manila.
Furthermore, Myanmar only began to join basketball tournaments overseas just six years ago, in the 2011 SEA Games that were held in Jakarta, Indonesia where they placed eighth. From there, they have been a fixture in the biennial event.
The sovereign state has always been identified as a football country, meaning that the basketball landscape is far from those compared to the likes of Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. “[It’s a] long way to go,” said Heng.
For this year’s edition of the SEABA wars, the Burmese team — as admitted by the head mentor — only had a month to prepare. And inevitably, they were not even able to assemble a competitive squad, with most of them still students.
“Most of them don’t have experience, [We] just gathered together and started training last month. Just for one month only,” opened Heng about his team, which has an average age of 20.33.
“Some are students, some are rookies. Very young team.”
Still, Heng believes that the game is not a microcosm of what their whole program is. For the elder tactician, his players will be better come the 2017 SEA Games on August in Malaysia.
“I’m very sure that when the SEA Games come, we will play better as a team,” Heng assured.
