National team to play in Kobatama series

National team to play in Kobatama series

JAKARTA (JP): The national basketball team will take part in
the 1997 Kobatama national basketball league series
championships, a league official announced yesterday.

Budi Rustanto of the Kobatama league said the participation of
the national team in the league championships series is to give
the amateur players a chance to sharpen their skills.

"By taking part in the four-month long championships, we hope
the national team will be able to improve their technical
skills," he said.

Budi said that local clubs, whose best players are sent to the
national team, have to let them join.

"Our main consideration is to take part in the Southeast Asian
championships in Malaysia in April," he said.

The association will send the Aspac club, the winner of last
year's Kobatama championship series.

Budi said that a team's composition will be changed in this
year's competition. "This year, there will only be one foreign
player and four local players on a team."

In the last two competition seasons, a team could field a team
of two foreign players and three local players.

"The purpose of changing the composition is to improve team
quality but they can still give a good performance," he said.

Budi said the association is still choosing big cities on Java
to hold the home-and-away competition series.

"Last year we held the competition in Jakarta, Bandung, Malang
and Surabaya," he said.

"This year Semarang, Solo and Bogor also offered to host the
competition," he added.

According to Budi, holding competitions in different cities
will aim at talent scouting for local youths. (05)