After a disappointing SEABA Championship in 2015, the Indonesia Basketball Federation (PERBASI) decided to going on a redemption rampage in SEA Games. They ended up with a silver medal by pushing the gold medalists, the Philippines, the entire game. It seemed like Indonesia were back on the rise once again.
But things are never that easy.
That SEA Games squad featured the cream of the crop of Indonesia Basketball at that moment. Legend Mario Wuysang, Fil-Indon Enguio Bagio, Indon-American Arki Wisnu, rising star Andakara Prastawa, and more.
THIS WAS PEAK INDONESIA.
They were also thisclose to taking down the Philippines and I kind of expected them to look for a chance to do that again with the same core in tact. They could have also had another Indon-American Brandon Jawato and Naturalized Player, Jamar Johnson, added to the squad as well!
But things are never that easy.
The scheduling of the SEABA Stankovic Cup just so happened to clash with the Playoffs of the Indonesian Basketball League (IBL). Of course, the majority of the best players in Indonesia were on the best clubs in Indonesia who would be playing in the playoffs. And because it’s the playoffs and not some regular season game in which the teams might have been able to agree to loan their players to the National Teams.
So instead of prancing top players from top teams like Satria Muda, Aspac Jakarta, or CLS Knights, or Pelita Jaya (who are among the top teams of the IBL), we’re instead getting players from teams like JNE Bandung Utama (11 wins), Bimasakti Nikko Steel Malang (7 wins), NSH Jakarta (6 wins), and Pacific Caesar Surabaya (1 win). Those are the bottom 4 teams in the BL that missed out on the playoffs.
It’s another bad case of scheduling which so often happens in this ASEAN region, so Indonesia will have to do with the team at hand and see how it goes.
Let’s break the team down:
HEAD COACH:
??????
I seriously have no idea who will be coaching this team since the coach from SEA Games, Coach Fictor Roring, is coaching Garuda Bandung who are in the IBL Playoffs.
I’m guessing one of the coaches from the 4 knocked out teams will be leading this team. Judging by the proportion of players per team, it should be either JNE Bandung Utama’s or Pacific Caesar Surabaya’s coach. Since JNE Bandung won 10 more games than Pacific Caesar, that’s probably the way they’ll be going.
It’s all speculation at this point because Google can only help me so much.
PLAYERS:
Barra Sugianto
Dian Heryadi
Francisco Yogi Da Silva
Gian Gumilar
Indra Muhamad
Muhammad Nur Aziz Wardana
Raylly Pratama Putra Handoyo
Restu Dry Purnomo
Surliyadin Surliyadin
Teddy Apriyana Romadon Syah
Untung Gendro Maryono
Yerikho Christophor Tuasela
I’m going to confess right off the bat that I have never heard of any of these guys ever. Not to say that they aren’t any good, just to note that my knowledge of Indonesia basketball is very very limited. That said, I’m going to try and give it a crack.
Of the 12, only one player comes from a team that isn’t stuck in the bottom 4 and that is Francisco Yogi Da Silva from Pelita Jaya. Right off the bat, Francisco Yogi is going to be one of the best names of the tournament. Yogi however, next really played much at Pelita Jaya save for games against lower wrung teams. He once dropped 14 points on a one-win Pacific Caesar team.
The core of this team should be the guys from JNE Bandung Utama as all 4 guys who made the National Team (Gian Gumilar, Teddy Apriyana, Untung Gendro, and Surliyadin Surliyadin) are all the core players of their respective teams in terms of minutes played.
Of the remaining players, 3 have experience in the international level (according to the sporting pusle index). Yerikho (another sweet name) of Pacific Caesar was on the 2012 SEABA U18 Championship, though he rarely played. Raylly Pratama of NSH Jakarta also played in 2012 for Indonesia, but it was for the SEABA Stankovic Cup which was help in Chiang Mai. Raylly also didn’t get to play that much. The guy who played the most in the international level is Restu Dwy Purnomo of Bimasakti Nikko Steal Malang. He played 83 minutes in 5 games during the SEABA Championship in 2015. Again, that was a tournament in which Indonesia had sent a second string team due to the unavailability of their top players due to domestic league play.
…I’m just going to stop here because that’s seriously all I know about this team. I’d love to be able to know more and I will get to know soon…but yeah, that it for now.
OVERALL:
I still have to an overall conclusion? Damn.
Well…if I can trust the height listed in IBL, this is going to be a pretty well balanced team in terms of heigh. Only Gian Gumilar is shorter than 1.85 meters. Of course, Yericho’s height is left blank so that either means he is really short or…
Can we just stop this now? I really don’t know much about this team and I don’t want to go on and keep embarrassing myself.
BEST CASE SCENARIO:
Yogi and Teddy form up to be a formidable bearish line up and tears down the Thailand team in the games opening match. At the end of the game, they celebrate wildly but stops abruptly to look for the stupid Thai blogger who knew nothing about them.
They ask around until they find out who he is. The Thai players point the blogger out and the Indonesian players finally gets him cornered.
Yogi brings out the box score as it reads that Indonesia had just won their opening match by 15 points. Yogi himself had scored 19. He jabs a finger at the box scores and asks that poor little blogger:
“Do you know me now?”
WORST CASE SCENARIO:
Would a 0-4 record actually be considered bad for this Indonesia squad? It seems like they were hastily assembled without much direction.
I mean, I could totally be wrong and I’ll apologize in advance if I am…but things just don’t look so good.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHT(S)
- This is probably what happens when people don’t communicate. The Basketball Federation should have a calendar of the basketball events to be held and should have communicated with the organizers of the league to shift the schedule here and there a bit. I have no idea whatever kind of politics are going on in the upper level (as there will always be in every single country) but the results are that instead of further pushing the momentum of basketball in the country, it ends up in what looks like a step back.
- Yogi & Teddy are going to be my most favorite duo of this tournament.
Check out the other team previews here:
Tones and Definition 