Asia warm-up tour for Indonesian SEAG basketball teams

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian men's and women's basketball teams will leave for a series of overseas tryouts in China, Hong Kong and the Philippines to warm up prior to the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Kuala Lumpur in September.

Women's team coach Wang Chang-yu of China said on Monday that the 14-strong team would warm up in China between Tuesday and Sunday. They would also play friendly matches with Hong Kong from July 31 to Aug. 4.

Meanwhile, men's team coach Tjetjep Firmansyah said his team would have an overseas stint in the Philippines from July 28 to Aug. 4 and would compete in the Fung Seng Cup in Hong Kong from Aug. 6 to Aug. 14.

Both coaches told National Sports Council (KONI) chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar that their teams had shown great progress during the Games training program.

"The players are improving their physical fitness, strength and teamwork," said Wang as interpreted by Anton Sugiarto, formerly the assistant manager in the 1997 SEA Games here.

Wang, who also coached the 1997 Games women's team, has called up four seniors to join his squad. They are Puspa Indah P.S., Theresia Ninon Salemon, Megawati Halim and Dwi Nofiriana.

Megawati laid the progress at the door of Wang's new training method, which he learned in the United States before starting to coach Indonesia.

"We are improving our technical skills and are not afraid to have body contact during the match. Our fitness is also better than was previously the case," she said.

Indonesia is aiming to reach the final as the team only earned a bronze in 1997 and nothing in 1999 as women's basketball was not featured.

"We are optimistic of reaching the final. We have lots of juniors in the team and they are highly motivated. They are persistent, especially in chasing the ball," said Megawati.

Men's team captain I Gede Agus Wahyudi said senior players would help boost Indonesia's chances of reaching the Games final.

"We are targeting taking home the silver," he said.

Indonesia took the bronze in 1999 Games in Brunei Darussalam.

Tjetjep said the players' VO2max (oxygen capacity of the blood) had improved during the five-months of training.

"In February, the players' average VO2max was 51 but it has increased to 54.6 in June."

He also said that the players' shooting skills had improved.

"When entering the second phase of training in June, the players managed to reach 36 percent in three-point shooting. The results are now closer to the Philippines players' skills, who are able to shoot 37 percent of three-pointers.

"The players can also already score 47 percent of field goals while we are targeting them to score 50 percent of the goals. They also score 74 percent of free throws or six percent closer to our target. Hopefully, after the overseas training the players will be able to reach the targets." he said. (ivy)