The Powerade-RP team pose prior to their departure for Beijing, China on Tuesday. The Nationals will compete in the 25th FIBA Asia Men’s Championship starting Thursday in Tianjin, China.

Games Thursday
(Tianjin gym)
Group A
9 a.m. – RP vs. Sri Lanka
2 p.m. – Korea vs. Japan

TIANJIN – Cricket, anyone?

Unless Sri Lanka has metamorphosed from being a cricket-loving nation to approximating the passion with which Filipinos worship their basketball stars, Powerade-Team Pilipinas should have little problem disposing of the East Asian qualifier at 9 a.m. Thursday at the start of the 25th FIBA Asia Men’s Championship at the Tianjin gym.

That, and assuming the Sri Lankans, still a puzzle at this point, have no 7-foot homegrown or naturalized player hidden in their midst, waiting to be unveiled in the tournament where the top three finishers will advance to the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Istanbul.

“We don’t know anything about them,” said national coach Yeng Guiao on their arrival from Manila Tuesday. “We have no scouting report on them and we haven’t seen them play.”

What the Nationals have is a fiery resolve at redemption after a forgettable performance in last month’s William Jones Cup in Taipei where they fell to sixth from third place two years ago.

With its sights fixed on exacting vengeance at long-time Asian rivals Japan and South Korea – both tormentors the RP team in Taipei – the PBA-backed national squad is wrestling against the urge to look beyond Sri Lanka, where cricket, a sport that resembles baseball, approaches fever-pitch mania even greater than a Game 7 championship involving Barangay Ginebra.

Japan and South Korea clash at 2 p.m. Thursday.

The Philippines then takes on Japan at 9 p.m. Friday and South Korea the next day, also at 9 in the evening.

Memories of a 19-point first half lead over Japan that got blown into pieces in an 87-85 loss in the Jones Cup will be at the core of the Nationals’ bid for a 3-0 record in the first phase of the preliminaries.

They were also in the middle of a nerve-fraying tied game against South Korea before falling to a three-point shot in the closing minutes to wind up losing, 83-80.

Before tackling these two mammoth missions, the RP team will have to first deal with Sri Lanka.

The East Asian squad, which cavorts with Pakistan and India in the pursuit of cricket excellence, furnished FIBA Asia organizers the names of its 12-man lineup but left blank the spaces for positions, heights and weights.

“We have to go all out against them regardless of what kind of team they have,” said Guiao.

Missing the opening game will be hotshot James Yap, who attended the burial of her mother in-law, former President Corazon C. Aquino.

Yap, married to TV host/movie actress Kris Aquino, the youngest child of Mrs. Aquino and the late former senator Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino, is joining his RP teammates Thursday.

Other inaugural day matches pit Kazakhstan vs. Qatar, Iran vs. Chinese-Taipei, India vs. China, Indonesia vs. United Arab Emirates, Kuwait vs. Uzbekistan, and Lebanon vs. Jordan.

A team managers meeting Wednesday afternoon, to be attended by Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas official Bernie Atienza and PBA operations and technical committee chief Rickie Santos, should be able to give the RP team coaching staff last-minute insights on the Sri Lankans.

Expected to join them is SBP executive director Noli Eala, who was to have flown in later in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, PBA Commissioner Renauld ‘Sonny’ Barrios and the league’s board of governors, led by incoming chairman Lito Alvarez of Burger King, are arriving Saturday in time for the game against South Korea.