SBP executive director Noli Eala said on Tuesday the SBP Board of Trustees was expected to approve the appointment of Black as head coach of the men’s team in the SEA Games, while the federation is still working on the papers of Xiaojing Zheng, a six-foot-three Chinese player who is expected to boost the country’s chances of winning its first-even SEA Games women’s basketball gold.

“Coach Norman will form a young team composed of top collegiate players,” said Eala in the weekly Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Forum at Shakey’s United Avenue in Manila.

“And he’s very optimistic of our chances. Sabi ko naman, only Indonesia and Malaysia will give us a fight but we will always have a fallback in [Marcus] Douthit just in case mabigat ang competition level,” he added.

Tryouts will be set in January but it will be by invitation, according to Eala, who mentioned the names of Ateneo’s Nico Salva, Junmar Fajardo of University of Cebu, University of the East’s Paul Lee and current Smart Gilas players Greg Slaughter and Aldrech Ramos as possible members of the squad.

The team will be launched in February and Black will be assisted by Sandy Arespacochaga, Mike Jarin and Glen Capacio. Arespacochaga and Jarin are Black’s assistants with the Blue Eagles, while Capacio was the former coach of Far Eastern University.

Black’s team will train for five months and will compete in an invitational tournament abroad in April. Eala said he will sit down with Black to discuss the team once the American coach returns from Hong Kong.

The SBP is also planning to send the women’s team to the annual William R. Jones Cup basketball tournament in Taiwan in July.

The team of coach Haydee Ong is fresh from a triumphant stint in the seventh Southeast Asian Games Basketball Association (Seaba) Women’s Championship held in Manila in October.

“The women’s team is one of the priority programs of the SBP next year. Our next target for them is to win the gold medal in SEA Games,” said Eala.

“Their achievement was not properly recognized. But we are determined to provide them more support and sana umabot si Zheng for the SEA Games,” he added. “I think they are one or two players away of being an elite team in the Asian level.”

The Philippine women’s squad swept its rivals in the Seaba meet and won its first gold medal in the Southeast Asian region.

And to sustain the momentum, the SBP is planning to hold a short commercial league for women next summer with six teams expected to see action.

“We’re very bullish about the year 2011. Nakalinya na ang mga programa natin sa SBP,” said Eala.

“We’re putting a whole year game plan for our SEA Games team,” said Eala in the forum presented by Outlast Battery, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and Shakey’s.

“One of our priorities, too, next year is our women’s team. After our breakthrough win in the Seaba, our next target is to win the SEA Games gold, which we haven’t done,” said Eala.

“Obviously, we didn’t reach our goal in 2010. The Asiad would have been our barometer, at least naka-semifinals man lang sana,” said Eala of the team mentored by Rajko Toroman, which placed sixth in the Guangzhou Games.

The SBP executive, himself a former commissioner of Asia’s first-ever play-for-pay league, said plans are now afoot about sitting down together with the Smart Gilas team and the Philippine Basketball Association to talk about ways to improve the bid of the national squad in major international meets.

“But I’m always confident about the developmental program of the SBP,” said Eala. “I think we will be solid enough come August (for the FIBA-Asia meet).”

Jorl Orellana, Business Mirror