Satria Muda promise Semangat showdown against Slingers
By Jan Lin/Red Hoops in Jakarta
Slinger head coach Frank Arsego conducts the final team talk at the 9am practise this morning at the BritAma Arena. The Slingers will take on Satria Muda at 3pm (4pm Singapore time) today. (Photo © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Despite the 96-72 beating by the Slingers in Singapore a fortnight ago, Satria Muda’s head Coach Fictor Roring believes that what separates the Singapore Slingers and Satria Muda is not skills but rather the possession of a resilient spirit.
“It’s not going to be about the technicalities, it’s going to be about this and this,” Roring said pointing to his head and heart.
As the Slingers entered The BritAma Arena for their hour-long training session this morning, the 4000-seater stadium plugged in the heart of a shopping mall was clearly oozing the “semangat” Satria Muda spirit coach Roring promised will be on offer today.
Hoisted on the walls of the Satria Muda’s nest in the affluent suburb of Kelapa Gading are gigantic posters that read: Play Hard. Team Play. Fear Nothing.
Slingers head coach Frank Arsego is however not at all concerned.
“I’m actually hoping for a lot of energy and for a very good crowd, an environment where our boys can come out and enjoy their basketball,” said Arsego.
“There are some things like these you can’t really prepare for until you’ve done it,” he continued, “but I’m expecting a really good performance from my boys as I’ve said to them all week, the measurement of a good team is how they respond to adversity.”
The visitors are coming off a 53-70 away game defeat against the ABL title-favourites Philippine Patriots.
“The result in Manila was somewhat a blessing in disguise for us,” Arsego shared. “It made us refocus on the things that were important to our program and realised that we are not automatic in some of the things that are important to us, the fundamentals.”
The Slingers had gone to Manila with a 4-0 winning streak.
“With winning one game after another, what had happened to all of us was we got carried along a bit too far ahead of where we might really be. That defeat made us refocus back to our own group,” he shared.
Arsego said on a final note: “The key ingredients for us in today’s game will be we have to come out with a lot of energy, focusing on our running game, man-to-man defense and having mental toughness.”
Like Arsego, Satria Muda’s coach Roring also remained upbeat despite the poor record against the Slingers. Roring said: “It’s still a long way to go, I think we still have a big chance to compete against all the teams and a big chance to go all the way to the play offs and win the Championship.”
While the Slingers have traveled without their back-up point guard Wong Wei Long, and Lim Wai Sian, who have both stayed behind as they are down with chicken pox, Satria Muda will also be playing with a slightly different roster from the previous meeting in Singapore.
The home team will be represented by their new American import, 6′ 10″ (208cm) American Nakiea Miller, who was brought in a fortnight ago to replace the disgruntled Theophilus Little. In his debut game against the Brunei Barracudas last weekend, Miller already stood out with a double-double of 16 points and 19 rebounds.
“I was very disappointed,” revealed Theo Little after his game in Singapore that had called for a performance evaluation of him by the coaching team. Little added: “I was focused and my mind was really set on this game and I was raring to go man!”
Despite starting for his team, Little was featured for only 14:47 minutes as the coaching team had hinted that some players got too carried away by the hype of the game and were not able to settle into the game.
An oblivious Little shared: “After starting, I thought I would be put back in, but unfortunately I didn’t get to play much in the game. I didn’t play that badly, I had a couple of rebounds and a few points. It was the coaches’ decision and not because of an injury or anything. The coach chose to use the smaller players and I don’t know why.”
So with a slightly weakened Slingers squad and Nakiea Miller starting in place of Theo Little for Satria Muda in the Slingers-Satria Muda showdown this afternoon, a change of fortune might just be on the cards. The game will tip-off at 3pm (Jakarta time).
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it’s a satria win, unless jeffers and leblanc average double doubles… and vergara is 100% in his game.
Today, the locals will shine!
I hope so, they should give the locals more minutes and lessen their imports loads…
the slingers should play their bench if they want the locals to improve… unlike what they did in the patriots game where 2 players didn’t play at all… arsego doesn’t trust his back up players.
any links to scoreboards guys???
the games just started
TY do you have the boxscore link? can’t find it…
@Deana
Here my dear – http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/4466/01/09/98/9855WX9ipOD7Y/
I will tweet what I can from here.
SLINGERS WON!!
Singing Slinger Praises!!!!!! Yeahhh!! GREAT JOB GUYS!! Soo Proud!!!
yeah a win with 2 points, anyway a win is still a win, satria got their chance but missed out… anyway i’m looking forward to the bout tommorrow hope cotto gives a good fight, i like him better because he is the more intelligent boxer…
Deana you should seriously come down for a game XD We were going crazy in the last few seconds on live stats. Can’t wait for next week’s home game! What a comeback!
ladyluck is still in the slingers side…when will their luck run out
Well, sometimes you gonna earn your luck. If you have luck but can’t take advantage of it, there’s no point.
luck is not earned it is a given… a person who escaped death by a mere second didn’t earn it…
Earned or not, would you turn down the chance to win the lottery?
I’ve read an article (way back, can’t sply link), a study on people who often have the good luck versus those who does not sem to get any luck, the people who always get lucky has always put themselves in a position to get lucky.
Slingers were trailing 49-59 with 3:26 left in the game. They went on a 12-nothing and closed out the game! Flyboy hit the last two shots of the game to turn the score around. I just knew that he was something special!!!!
@jake, luck? Nah. This is a game of heart and grit!!!! And the better team won.
SINGAPORE SLINGERS ROCK!!! We love the passion of these guys! It took more than skills to win a game like this.
Wow!!! the Brunei-Thailand game is also a come-from-behind classic – (If based on stats, and the deficit the other team has to overcome).
It rained 3-point shots there – 12-21 Brunei and 11-32 Thailand.
ABL needs this type of games, whoever at the winning end of the stick – with due respect and apologies to the losing teams today. Also, the locals are stepping up big time for Thailand for the past 2 games.
Why can’t they put replays (full clip) of the games in the ABL website?
It’s quite sad that most of us here are relying on the live stats.
Whenever an ABL game is on ESPN or Starsports, I use the Mossaic / Preview mode. I can subscribe to the Sports package only next week as I’m still waiting for the cable tv account on my flat to be transferred to my wife’s name.
I wonder how the Singapore media will report this game tomorrow (if they ever mention it!!))….will the Flyboy’s name even appear in the news reports?
I hope the KL-Patriots game tomorrow will be as exciting. I hope Rudy can score 30 points.
Rudy Lingganay’s an exciting, he will wanna show the Patriots his ability. I don’t think the media will report though (with the exception of Redsports)
Gordan, Mart, Slingerrocks, & even Jack who obviously can’t stand the Slingers showing no respect whatsoever… (I think his knew nick name will be BKJack (for Bad Karma)! lol Lady Luck was sent from me directly Jack & it won’t be running out in time to make you happy!! lol Gordan!!!! Where is my round trip flight already!!! I want to be there for the playoffs!!!!! I am with the team always in spirit!!
The Slingers did an excellent job keeping their eye on the prize so to speak… I knew the guys could do it, as they just needed to stay focused & play the game which they did with amazing passion… I am so proud of our Slingers as they are a talented group of guys who deserve all our respect for stopping SM in their tracks during the final minutes of the game, not to mention catching up so many times during the game itself! SM had an excellent game, yet even with the Slingers shallow bench this game, our Slingers have a Team Spirit & TRUE Passion that beats every team in this League so far & my hats off to these TALENTED young men!! I seriously doubt lady luck had the control over the outcome of this game!! Really for goodness sakes Jack get a grip…. lol
Mart, How can I subscribe to the sports package via internet??!!! My Cable TV gets every ESPN Coverage in the World EXCEPT FOR Assia??? Now lady luck is messing with me!! lol ESPNStars really can expand this opportunity to make more money & so can the ABL!!!! Someone please get the word out to the right people.. MARKETING STRATEGY!!
PEACE OUT!! Slingermom
@deanna you are the most doting mom… hope your son likes what you are doing…
the indonesian locals, conctributed more than the singaporeans did… their imports played full time again except for ng… poor guys.
@deanna,
You’re in the United States, right? which state are you in?
I really don’t have any idea how you can subscribe to ESPN asia. It’s the opposite here for Filipinos in Singapore, they want the ESPN US (because of NBA basketball, and for me American football).
Maybe you can purchase satellite tv(?). A sports bar in the Philippines has one, I got to witness a Manny Pacquiao bout there last May and my brother told me it’s a direct satellite feed from the US.
Jake, yes I have been my son’s #1 fan since he was born… lol… then I put a BB in his hands at the age of 2!!! Needless to say I have been a doting Mom to not only my son, but many boys over the last 20 years… is there a problem with that?
Mart, I have a fantastic computer… Dishnetwork Satelite which gets every damn Sports Package in the World EXCEPT Espnstar Asean!! I immediately was ready to buy the package when my son flew to Singapore… I was on the phone immediately… no luck here yet… but the word is they are working on it for us here in the US & all over the world, so pray for us parents, friends, families & fans that follow are favorite players in the ABL.. We are on pins & needles… lol