By REYNALD MAGALLON
Rain or Shine may have fallen short of making it back to the semifinals in the PBA Season 50 Philippine Cup but head coach Yeng Guiao is far from being dejected.
The Elasto Painters have advanced to the Final Four in the last four conferences and looked to be on their way in the all-Filipino Cup after securing a twice-to-beat advantage in the quarterfinals.
ROS, however, failed to take advantage of it and lost back-to-back against Meralco, ruining what could be an exciting semis rematch with TNT.
But Guiao shrugged off the loss, noting that it was natural to experience dips in an improving team like the Elasto Painters.
“That’s part of basketball. Parang may dip lang yan,” said Guiao after getting the boot by way of a 98-89 defeat to Meralco.
“We’re trending up. But when you trend up, there’s going to be some dips along the way. But after that, you’re still going to trend up. And that’s still a good situation for us,” the veteran coach insisted.
Though ROS missed out on the semis, Guiao said his team remained competitive evident in their second seed finish at the end of the eliminations
“The more important thing to me is the team remains competitive, its potential and upside are very bright. So we preferred to look at it as along the way there’s going to be some trials, tribulations, and some obstacles,” explained Guiao.
“But yung trend namin, yung direction namin is still going up. Mataas pa rin naman,” he added.
While suffering a quarterfinals exit is certainly not an improvement as compared to their finishes in the last conference.
“I felt we were improving as a team. At a time when you think you’re getting better tapos hindi ka makakarating sa semis, that’s the disappointment. But that’s part of basketball” according to Guiao.
