PAGADIAN, ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR — Jorem Morada delivered a successful debut for Basilan BRT in the Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas VisMin Super Cup Mindanao Challenge, Wednesday night.
The 5-foot-10 guard out of Davao registered a team-high 15 points, four rebounds, four assists, and three steals en route to a 74-70 victory over Globalport-MisOr at the Pagadian City Gymnasium here.
He also got the Chooks-to-Go Manok ng Bayan player of the game honors.
And it only gets better as details were spilled.
First, Morada just arrived in Pagadian on Wednesday morning and have yet to practice with the Peace Riders.
“‘Yung game kanina lakas lang ng loob yun at kumpyansa,” said the Emilio Aguinaldo College product.
“Syempre kapag kumpyansa ka, lahat magagawa mo sa court.”
“Nagko-coach pa lang ako sa collegiate nakikita ko na si Jorem kaya sabi ko sa kanya kahit wala ka pang ensayo, ‘yung kumpyansa ibibigay ko sayo,” shared Basilan head coach Ron Jalmanzar.
Morada, along with Monic Soliva, were late additions to the Peace Riders squad, who lost most of their key pieces last conference.
To make Morada’s performance even better, this is his first foray of basketball during the pandemic. He last played for Sarangani Marlins in the MPBL in 2019.
“Noong 2019 pa last kong laro sa MPBL Sarangani. Two years akong nawala pero nag-eensayo naman ako sa Davao,” he said.
“Sobrang sarap makabalik sa basketball!”
But Morada knows that the conference is just starting and there’s still a lot of things that need to be worked on.
He’s not leaving his chances to basketball skills. He’s aware that chemistry is more important.
“Sa mga practices kailangan kong maging masipag pa. Hindi ko pa gamay eh. Sa next practices namin makukuha na namin ‘yung chemistry,” said the 27-year-old cager.
