Coach Jong optimistic on the role Women In Basketball after seeing high attendance in first three webinars

The Coaches' Academy of the SBP, in conjunction with FIBA in Singapore, held the first half of their women's basketball webinar series named "Women In Basketball: Growing the Game" on the second week of August to a positive response.

An average of 277 participants have tuned in per webinar, with a host of speakers led by Japan women's national team head coach Tom Hovasse have put more than just a smile to Academy head coach Jong Uichico.

"We have pretty good speakers thanks to FIBA," he said. "The speakers did very well in communicating their topics. As a result, I was so engrossed in it."

The said topics were carefully selected by both the Academy and FIBA, in which it is intended to get them engaged as much as they can.

"It will be very useful to anybody, especially for the women's basketball coaches," said the multi-titled mentor, wherein the first three topics pertaining to the psychology, skills development and decision making are the basic tools before getting to the team aspect of the series.

"Those topics is a progression to team concepts in the 2nd half of the webinar.," he added.

The presence of Hovasse has inspired him so much, knowing that Japan have worked so hard for the past decade to move out of the shadows of China and established themselves as the queens of Asian basketball.

"Japan is now a competitive team in the world, their story is an inspiration for us."

For him it should be motivation for women’s basketball to get a foothold in the nation's sporting scene, in which the momentum brought by their double golden glory in the recent SEA Games should be sustained.

"Hopefully that will happen, that women's basketball players can aspire to be part of the Gilas Women’s team."

Photo: SBP (FILE)