By Reuel Vidal

THERE will be a slight change in the format of the Elimination and Wildcard of the coming Philippine Basketball Association Fiesta Conference. Based on their performance in the past Philippine Cup, the 10 PBA teams will be divided into two groups.

Group A will include the Alaska Aces, the Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings, the Sta. Lucia Realtors, the Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants and the Coca-Cola Tigers. Group B will include the Talk N Text Tropang Texters, the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, the San Miguel Beermen, Burger King and the Barako Bulls.

Teams in a group will play against each other once and against teams in the other group twice. This means there will be less games in the Eliminations. Each team will play only 14 games (instead of 18 in the elimination round.

The top two teams after the elimination round then automatically advance to the Semifinals. All the other teams go to the Wildcard Phase.

The third and fourth placed teams play against the tenth and ninth placed teams with the former enjoying a twice-to-beat advantage. The fifth and sixth placed teams play the seventh and eighth placed teams in a sudden-death knockout match.

The surviving four teams then play in a best-of-three Quarterfinals with the two surviving teams advancing to the best-of-seven Semifinals.

With this new format, PBA officials hope to conclude the 34th season of the league early June, 2009.

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Initial reports filtering in are that most of the PBA teams already have deals with their respective imports.

Burger King, formerly the Air21 Express will return chunky import Shawn Daniels. The Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings also returns lethal lefty Rod Nealy. The Coca-Cola Tigers will have former Talk N Text reinforcement JJ Sullinger (who will be just a substitute import and will play for just two weeks). James Penny, who led Red Bull to the 2006 Fiesta Conference Championship, will arrive March 15 to take over for the Tigers. Rain or Shine will return do-everything workhorse Charles Clark.

New imports coming in are former Boise State star Reggie Larry for the Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants and A. J. Jackson for the Sta. Lucia Realtors.

As for the Alaska Aces coach Tim Cone says they will return Rosell Ellis who is playing for the Townsville Crocodiles in the National Basketball League in Australia . The Crocodiles are in the middle of the playoffs but Cone is hoping that Ellis can conclude his business in Australia to return to the Aces.

Ellis powered Alaska to the 2007 Fiesta Conference title but could not return to help defend the Alaska crown when PBA officials voted to bring in imports of unlimited height for the 2008 Fiesta Conference.

Fans should be in for an exciting treat because a lot of these imports are tried and tested. Shawn Daniels is a great complement for Burger King because despite his size he can play the post.

This means BK can maximize the use of its fleet-footed locals led by Arwind Santos, Gary David and new acquisition JC Intal.

Both Penny and Ellis led their respective ballclubs to Fiesta Conference titles making both Coke and Alaska instant title contenders.

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And speaking of the Aces, no there will be no large scale changes involving Alaska this conference. Cone said that while placing second is a big disappointment there is no denying the advances made by the Aces this past conference after a disappointing finish in the 2008 Fiesta Conference.

Cone said that the team, especially with young newcomers that include Joe Devance, LA Tenorio, Larry Fonacier as well as rookies Mark Borboran and Kelvin Dela Peña, will definitely become that much better having gone through so much adversity this past season.


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