JAPETH Aguilar reunited with former college teammate AJ (Anthony Darrell) Slaughter during the friendly between Gilas Pilipinas and home team Poland, Sunday morning in the city of Sosnowiec.
But apart from the brief get-together, the two also exchanged playing jerseys at the end of the host country’s 82-80 win.
During the traditional team handshake at the end of the game, Aguilar and Slaughter approached each other and gave their jerseys as respective souvenirs.
“AJ was my teammate at Western Kentucky in college,” shared the veteran national team big man to SPIN.ph from Latvia.
“Magka-batchmate kami together with Jeremy Evans,” Aguilar added, referring to the former NBA player who had stints with the Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks, and the Atlanta Hawks.
After a brief exchange of words, the two went their separate ways. Unfortunately, however, the 37-year-old Filipino failed to capture the moment.
“Hindi na ako nakapagpa-photo,” said Aguilar.
Not THAT Slaughter
Slaughter, 35, wasn’t in the Polish roster against Gilas, but still managed to link up with his former college teammate.
In their prior game before, though, he scored seven points and dished five assists in a 88-59 win over New Zealand in a similar friendly.
He became Poland’s naturalized player in 2015 and played for the team in the 2015, 2017, and 2022 EuroBasket.
Aguilar and Slaughter did catch up with each other during the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China, but the Philippines and Poland didn’t play against each other as they were bracketed in different groups.
Slaughter was with the Polish team that lost to the US, 87-74, in the classification phase for seventh place in the World Cup five years ago, where he finished with 15 points as the team's third-best scorer.
Like Gilas, Poland - ranked No. 15 in the world - is preparing for the Paris Olympic qualifiers set this week. The Filipinos will be competing in the tournament in Riga, Latvia, while the Polish are booked for Valencia, Spain.
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