Ginebra's long and rocky road to success

Before Ginebra battle Talk And Text this coming Friday, let us do a recap of how did Ginebra end up being in the semis.

Ginebra's New Head Coach: Mr. Alfrancis Chua

Everyone was really pumped up to see Ginebra play at the start of the conference, with the powerhouse lineup of Coach Alfrancis Chua, Ginebra seemed to be one of the strongest teams in the league. Parading their complete and strong line-up with: Billy Mamaril, Yousef Taha, LA Tenorio, Rob Labagala, JJ Helterbrand, Herbert Hill, Kerby Raymundo, Elmer Espiritu, Willie Wilson, Keith Jensen, Rico Maierhofer, Dylan Ababou, Chris Ellis, Mac Baracael, Mark Caguioa and Rudy Hatfield. The fans expected that the Brgy. Ginebra will be dominating this league.

Their first game was with Air 21 and they lost against them with the score 74-70. Mark Caguioa carried the scoring load with 26 points. It was Air 21's import Michael Dunigan who damaged Gin Kings both on offense and defense. Definitely not the way the players and fans wanted their PBA 2013 campaign to begin.

Ginebra lost their first game against Air21

Ginebra's next game was against the star-studded GlobalPort lead by their big men Justin Williams with strong local supports on Gary David, Japeth Aguilar, Sol Mercado and Willie Miller. On this game, Ginebra suffered an 89-80 loss against GlobalPort despite the efforts of Hill and Caguioa who provided 22 and 20 points respectively. Hill provided decent numbers but still can't give Ginebra their first elusive win. 

Mark Caguioa's 20pt output isn't enough to beat GlobalPort

By this time, we are all sure that Ginebra will bounce back harder and try to win one game at a time but their fate isn't telling them the same thing. Ginebra tasted their third straight loss in as many games against Petron Blaze Boosters. Before this game started, talks have been made that the management of Ginebra decided to replace Herbert Hill with Vernon Macklin a 6'10 guy from Florida to hopefully help them on their very bad campaign start. Ginebra management gave Herbert Hill one last chance to prove his worth by letting him play against Petron but the result is still the same. Ginebra was outscored by Petron 105-90. It was once again Mark Caguioa who top scored the team with 24 points with the help of LA Tenorio with 19 points. Hill struggled on his last game and finished with 16 points.

I will discuss what happened to Ginebra's campaign with the arrival of Vernon Macklin. Stay tuned.

(PS: All photos came from Google. Thank you!)

Keep the Faith.
Paolo