Quickness and intelligence.

These will be the main court arsenals of the Nokia Under-16 Basketball team according to coach Eric Altamirano.

“It’s a quick, running team. Not really tall but a very smart team,” said Altamirano during this week’s PSA Forum at Shakey’s UN Avenue Branch.

The U-16 coach said his coaching staff will focus on these attributes to help the squad go around their rivals’ advantage in height.

Altamirano said the average height of the young squad is 6 feet, with the tallest standing at 6’5” and the rest ranging from 5’11” to 6”. They will be facing teams with players walking around 6’5” to 7’.

“Admittedly we can’t compete with the height of teams from other countries, we really have to find ways to offset that. Our coaching staff we plan to really focus our quickness shooting and basketball intelligence. That’s the only way we can win in this type of tournaments,” said Altamirano.

The RP squad, supported by Nokia and TAO Corp. under the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, is targeting one of two seats for the FIBA-Asia Under-16 tournament this November in Malaysia.

To do that, they would have to hurdle the Southeast Asian Basketball Association (SEABA) tournament in July.

Altamirano said the team will go through preparations that includes tune-up games against college squads from Cagayan de Oro and Cebu. These are aside from trainings at the Nike Elite Camp and the Australian Institute of Sports.

The team is composed of Kiefer Ravena, Ray Parks, Von Pessumal, Roldan Sara, Ralph Nayve, Jeron Jeng, Kristoffer de la Costa, Jeffrey Jarillonar, Cris Michael Tolomia, Paolo Luis Romero, John Aldrin Lunas, Narr Benedict Garay, Kevin Ferrer and Michael Anthony Fae.

“What I like about this team is kahit sandali pa lang sila nagsasama, maganda ang chemistry nila,” said Altamirano.

“The intelligent quotient in basketball is very high. That will really be an advantage when you go to international competitions,” he added.