THE young guns of the Ateneo Blue Eagles were quick to jump in the latest #DontMissABeat social media campaign.
It's a gimmick cooked up by Fiba for the 2021 World Cup, and launched last weekend, along with the reveal of the new logo for its third window this coming February.
A bulk of the current 12-man Gilas cadets — who took back-to-back Ws against Thailand in the recent Bahrain expedition — is made up of the True Blue Squad. This includes Dwight Ramos, Isaac Go, Dave Ildefonso, and brothers Matt and Mike Nieto.
Even Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin is part of the national team coaching staff.
So it made sense that they hopped on this social media hashtag right away. And how.
The first ones to flex on their skills were Dave and Dwight, who both preferred to sit down:
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Ildefonso showed off his dribbling skills, with the ball dancing to the rhythm of the beat, while Ramos made mid-air ball handling look EZ.
According to Fiba, this initiative is a fitness campaign, open to anyone who'd like to jump in, to keep bodies in shape especially in this period of time where health is literally wealth.
"[It is] an effort to keep the basketball community united and active over the next few months," they announced. "The #DontMissABeat campaign aims to encourage all fans to have fun with music beats linked to basketball on social media channels such as a dribbling contest, among other highlights. National team players from the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia will be part of the campaign over the next coming weeks."
The two then tagged some of their Ateneo teammates to continue the social media challenge chain.
Check out Tyler Tio's standing version:
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Angelo Kouame, who was initially named part of the 16-man pool but could not join as his naturalization is still ongoing, also joined in on the fun.
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Captain SJ Belangel even added some cool TikTok effects:
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Raffy Verano and Gian Mamuyac also showed their support.
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Ateneo commit Chris Koon joined in as well, even if he said that he'd just come from a long flight. Jet lag, what?
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