In notching his first victory with the newest MPBL team member, Ilagan Isabela Cowboys, coach Louie Gonzalez was able to get a help from a former enemy \u2013 ex-San Beda Red Lion Art dela Cruz.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz was a last-minute inclusion of the Cowboys, but the second generation player didn\u2019t have trouble fitting in quickly to the system of Gonzalez, whose squad posted an impressive 74-54 win over Sarangani for a smashing debut in the country\u2019s nationwide basketball tournament just recently.<\/p>\n
Playing in front of their home crowd at the newly-built, 10,000-seater capacity Capital Arena in the City of Ilagan, the Cowboys came out more energized led by this lefty forward who played in the PBA for several years, Dela Cruz flexed his muscles and pumped in 16 points, 11 rebounds and three assists.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz was flattered by the fact Gonzalez made him feel that he\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSi Coach Louie talaga,\u201d said Dela Cruz when asked why did he choose to join the Cowboys. \u201cTo be honest, siya kalaban ko during college. Kaya nakakataba ng puso na yun pang kalaban ko nakaka-appreciate ng laro ko.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHindi lahat nabibigyan ng chance ng kalaban mo, na mamahalin ka ng kalaban mo,\u201d he added. \u201cFor the whole part of my career, hindi ko akalain na magugustuhan nila ako. Kaya masarap sa feeling na nakikita nila yung talent ko.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Gonzalez, he feels his team has become much better by turning his old rival into an ally.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like the icing on the cake (for our team),\u201d added Gonzalez, who coached Jose Rizal University for several years when Dela Cruz was among the star players of that talent-laden Red Lions, who created a dynasty in the NCAA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so used to building and developing players, but nakita namin nung practice namin na we needed someone who can take the lead, it\u2019s good thing na available si Art. Malaking bagay siguro yun (na dati ko siyang kalaban), but we know Art is a good team player.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In notching his first victory with the newest MPBL team member, Ilagan Isabela Cowboys, coach Louie Gonzalez was able to get a help from a former enemy \u2013 ex-San Beda Red Lion Art dela Cruz. Dela Cruz was a last-minute inclusion of the Cowboys, but the second generation player didn\u2019t have trouble fitting in quickly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[257,105],"class_list":["post-2388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hoops-basketball","tag-ilagan-isabela-cowboys","tag-mpbl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2390,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions\/2390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}