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)