Black's magic: Ateneo coach aims to bring luck to SEA Games

From the PBA and the UAAP, Norman Black hopes to bring his magic touch to the 26th Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) in Indonesia in November next year.

Fresh from steering the Ateneo Blue Eagles to a third straight UAAP men's basketball title, Black said Tuesday that he has accepted Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas' (SBP) offer to handle the Philippine men’s basketball team seeing action in the 50th-year celebration of the SEAG set in South Sumatra Province’s capital city of Palembang.

"The SBP asked me to coach the RP team to the SEA Games and I already said yes," Black said in the weekly PSA Forum.

The 52-year-old coach, ranked the third winningest in the 36-year history of the PBA and one of only four mentors to author a rare Grand Slam, said he has yet to sit down with the country's governing body for basketball on the probable set-up of the team that will be composed mostly of players from the country’s top collegiate leagues such as the UAAP and the NCAA.

But the former Detroit Piston who's also considered one of the greatest imports ever to have played in Asia’s first professional leagu, stressed that it’s imperative to form the RP squad as early as possible.

"I haven't talk about it with the SBP until now (Tuesday). But we definitely have to go into training early. We have to choose and form the team early. And we have to do whatever is necessary if need be," he said.

The Philippines has long dominated basketball in the history of the SEA Games.

Since 1991, the Filipinos have successfully defended their title, the last of which came in the 2007 edition of the biennial meet in Nakhonratchasima, Thailand with a team bankrolled by Harbour Centre that crushed the opposition by an average winning margin of 43 points.

Black clinched the coaching post after the Blue Eagles stunned the fancied Far Eastern University (FEU) Tamaraws with a two-game sweep of the UAAP men's basketball title series.

The Ateneo coach, a long-time resident in the country, said he'll definitely try to get FEU counterpart Glenn Capacio as part of his coaching staff once his appointment as national coach becomes official.

Tamaraws early title favorite, says Black

Black believes FEU remains a strong contender for the UAAP title next season — one reason he says he was surprised that Capacio resigned from his coaching post less than a week following that 0-2 humbling the Tams suffered at the hands of the Eagles.

"FEU will be a very strong team next year. The Tamaraws may be going through the same experience we had in 2006," recalled Black, when the heavily-favored Blue Eagles also made it to the Finals, only to be ambushed by a resilient University of Santo Tomas Tigers squad.

Two years after that heartbreaker, Ateneo came back a stronger team and won what was the first of its three straight men’s basketball championships.

A fourth one beckons next season when big man Greg Slaughter finally suits up for the team after serving a one-year residency, and hopefully, high school phenom Kiefer Ravena.

Rey Joble, GMA News