STREET SPORTS: MassKara Sinadya sa Bacolod

One of the best MassKara festivals in recent memory has come to a conclusion with a lot of high profile actors, actresses and bands coming to our city to take part in the festivities. The festival also had a lot of sports festivities.

The 2nd Albee Benitez 10-ball tournament from October 8-12 drew most of the top billiards players in our country and had a surprise winner in Roel Nalaunan who bagged the P350,000 champions purse. He bested Bonnie Pentacasi of Bohol by a score of 9-7 in the final. Pentacasi took the P100,000 runner up prize. Other notable participants of the tournament were Francisco Django’ Bustamante, Antonio Gabica, Demosthenes Pulpul and Ramil Gallego. Billiards legend Efren ‘Bata Reyes also arrived but only took part in exhibition contests against top officials and popular personalities of the city.

In basketball, PBA teams Rain or Shine Elasto Painters and Meralco Bolts had an exhibition game won by the Elasto Painters, 94-81, last October 19 in a match dubbed as the “Pasiklaban sa Supercity” Bacolod fans were able to watch their favorite superstars like James Yap of Rain or Shine live in person. It was a welcome treat to have the PBA and its stars come back to Bacolod after a number of years of being unable to do so due to the covid-19 pandemic. There were also well attended events like beach volleyball, badminton, football and motocross. Kudos to Bacolod City Mayor Albee Benitez and the Bacolod Yuhum foundation for a job well done in bringing these sports events to our city.

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For the first time since 1962, Gilas Pilipinas has won the gold medal in the Asian Games In a low-scoring affair in the Asian Games final, the Philippines defeated Jordan, 70-60 to clinch the gold medal that every Filipino dreamed of the basketball gold. Naturalized player Justin Brownlee scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead the Filipinos in the pulsating contest, avenging an earlier 21-point loss to Jordan in the elimination round. in. But in my opinion the game that made the Filipinos win the gold medal was the semifinal contest against long time rival China. The Philippines eked out a 77-76 win against the host, coming back from a deficit as high as 21 points. China was still leading by 9 points, 76-67 with 3 minutes left before Brownlee scored 8 points, including 2 big triples in the final minute, as Gilas made a game-ending 10-0 run to clinch the victory in front of a large and stunned Chinese home crowd in Hangzhou, China. It was a great showing by the Filipinos in the basketball tournament in which they were not among the favorites to win. They were well-coached by Tim Cone throughout, bouncing back from a poor showing in the FIBA World Cup in which as the host country they only finished 24th amongst 32 teams The only damper to winning the gold was Brownlee being tested positive for doping after a test was conducted after the Asian games final. But I think nothing can take the joy and pride out of our Philippine basketball team after ending a 63 year wait and winning their 5th gold medal.

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The 2023-2024 NBA season has just started and it will be a wide-open season on who wins the NBA championship. The defending champion Denver Nuggets retained the majority of their core, led by NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and point guard Jamaal Murray, start off as favorites but have a slew of challengers who want to take their title away in their own conference the Phoenix Suns have added superstar Bradley Beal to pair up with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. The LA Clippers just added James Harden, to pair up with Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Russell Westbrook to form 4 Hall of Fame All-Stars. The 2022 champion Golden State Warriors have added veteran Chris Paul to their line-up, letting go of youngster Jordan Poole and still have their championship veterans Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. The Los Angeles Lakers provided more support to their superstar duo of Lebron James and Anthony Davis, adding shooter Gabe Vincent and big men Christian Wood and Jackson Hayes. And don’t count out the exciting Sacramento Kings led by their young superstar DeAaron Fox But the biggest changes have come to the Easter conference where the 2021 champion Milwaukee Bucks made the biggest splash, acquiring superstar guard Damian Lillard to pair with 2-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. They still have Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez in the mix, but had to let go of star point guard Jrue Holiday, who was traded to the Boston Celtics. The Celtics also acquired sweet-shooting big man Kristaps Porzingis to pair with their superstars Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum as they chase their first title since 2008.

The 2023 NBA runner-up Miami Heat mostly retained their core led by superstars Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, adding big man Thomas Bryant to the mix and letting go of key reserve players Vincent and Max Struss. Another thing fans need to look out for is the new innovation of the NBA which is the in-season tournament which runs from November to December 2023.*

Pio Alessandro S. Ozoa is a graduate of BS Computer Science at USLS. A big fan of sports, especially basketball. A late bloomer when it comes to playing the game, he watches sports often on livestream often as a deviation from the stress of everyday life.