By Jerome Lagunzad
Even without reigning two-time UAAP MVP Ben Mbala, La Salle won’t have any shortage in height and heft for the UAAP basketball tournament next year.
Former New Zealand national juniors team standout Taane Samuel could take over the big shoes left by the 6-foot-7 Mbala if and when he gets the green light from Green Archers’ coaching staff – and the UAAP Technical Committee as well.
The 6-foot-8 Samuel, 18, who’s already undergoing the league’s required one-year residency for foreign student-athletes, has been training with the Green Archers’ Team B handled by coach Anton Altamirano for quite some time.
Also waiting in the wings for La Salle is another pair of Altamirano’s blue-chip recruits, 6-foot-9 Fil-American CJ Lane who hails from New Jersey and 6-foot-8 Fil- Aussie Brandon Bates who’s from Sydney, Australia.
Promising G-Boy Gob, who’s been making a sustained recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, should be back in the mix along with La Salle mainstay Prince Rivero, lanky Justine Baltazar and workhorse Santi Santillan.
However, all eyes will be on Samuel, who made a good account of himself despite the Kiwis’ 11th place finish in the FIBA Under-19 Basketball World Cup in Cairo Egypt last July, coming up with 11.2 points and 3.4 rebounds per game.
Since he enrolled at La Salle fresh from high school, Samuel, born in Wellington, New Zealand, could play the maximum of five years, giving the Green Archers an inside presence for a longer period.
Samuel certainly has a tough work cut out for him since he will try to duplicate—or even surpass—the dominant performance shown by the 6-foot-7 Mbala during his two-year reign with the Green Archers.
The do-it-all Cameroon big man powered La Salle to a near flawless title run last year and towed it back to the finals in UAAP Season 80, only to fall prey to archrival Ateneo in their winner-take-all encounter early this month.
With a big cloud of uncertainty hovering over his eligibility next season, Mbala, 22, decided to turn pro by joining Fuerza Regia de Monterrey in the Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Professional, the top-tier league in Mexico.
