Stadium29, home of the Mono Vampire Basketball Club of the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL), will serve as host for the FIBA Asia Cup 2021 SEABA Pre-Qualifiers during June 26 to June 30.
The participating teams are Thailand (Hosts), Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. The teams will play in a single round-robin format to determine the top four teams that will advance to the next qualifying round.
Thailand will be featuring a lot of ABL talents with 4 players active last season and 4 other players who have played in past seasons prior.
Darongphan Apiromvilaichai and Teerawat Chantachon were major pieces in the Mono Vampire Basketball Club’s run to the ABL Finals and they are expected to play an even bigger role in the national team setting as well. Sorot Sunthornsiri didn’t log as many minutes last season as his teammates, but he’s expected to play big minutes at the wing for Thailand.
Tyler Lamb of the Hong Kong Eastern Basketball Team will be making his FIBA competition debut for Thailand. The former ABL Champion and Heritage Import MVP already represented the country in the SEA Games the past year and he’s back for more this time.
Bandit Lakhan, Nakorn Jaisanuk, Patipan Klahan, and Chanatip Jakrawan were all part of Hitech Bangkok City in previous seasons as well.
Douglas Marty, Coach of the Mono Vampire, will also be taking the reigns of the Thailand National Team for the first time in this tournament.
Indonesia are also packing a loaded ABL roster themselves with 3 players from last season’s CLS Knights Indonesia. Sandy Kurniawan was among the league’s top sharpshooters last season, while Kaleb Ramot Gemilang and Firman Dwi Nugroho had their moments in Coach Koko’s rotation.
Former ABL players Arki Wisnu and Kevin Yonas Sitorus of the Indonesia Warriors will also be on the squad.
Malaysia will have the roster with the most recently active ABL activity, amounting for 7 players from the Westports Malaysia Dragons of the previous season. The majority of them are players with multiple seasons on their belt like Kuek Tian Yuan, Wong Yi Hou, Ivan Yeo, Teo Kok Hou, and Ting Chun Hong. This core is so young and full of potential that it should give plenty of hope for the Malaysia faithful.
Chun Hong, Tian Yuan, and Yeo in particular had good seasons this past year and should look further build on to that in the international stage.
ABL rookies Heng Yee Tong and Chin Zhi Chin round up the other two Dragonforce from last season.
The Singapore Slingers will also be well represented with the Singapore National Team with six players that saw minutes in the previous year. Delvin Goh highlights the bunch with (another) productive season as he continues to make strides of improvement. He’s transitioned well to playing away from the basket and we’ll get to see here in a setting without import players if he can continue that development.
Kelvin Lim, Mitchell Folkoff, Larry Liew, Leon Kwek, and Tay Ding Loon all played swarming defense on the wings for the Slingers this past year as usual.
Three other Singapore Slingers who did not play last season puts the total of ABL players for Singapore up to 9, including Sheng Yu Lim, Wong Wei Long, and Toh Qin Huang.
Bruneu Darussalam might not have any current players or a current team in the ABL, but the National Team Captain, Benjamin Sim, was a part of the Brunei Barracudas of the early ABL days.
