DASMARINAS, Cavite — Wins are never handed on a silver platter in professional sport, wherever in the world it may be.
What a well-traveled coach like Italy’s Alessandro Lodi has learned over his 15-year international coaching career is that one must be ready to pull out all the stops for wins.
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While so-called ‘one-man teams’ and ‘heavy-lifters’ often get scrutinized in the local sporting scene, Lodi refuses to dignify that notion and instead puts a premium on his ‘whatever it takes’ coaching acumen.
His prime example was one away from the pro scene, citing record-breaking Adamson super rookie Shaina Nitura who shattered UAAP scoring records day in and day out.
“You might have a dominant player who scores 35 points in a game, and you feed the beast,” Lodi said.
“There have been people criticizing Adamson for having [Shaina] Nitura scoring 35 points a game. I think those people are ridiculous.
“If you have the best player in the game, you give her the ball, like all the best teams in the world do.”
To win at all costs
For Lodi, it’s not about making sure that his team has that one lethal scorer or multiple scoring machines on hand.
“It’s not a philosophy. The philosophy is to do everything you can to win the next play,” said Lodi.
“Sometimes, we'll have four players in double digits and we're not unhappy, for sure. But maybe next time, Tubu scores 32 and Rizza Cruz scores zero, and we're equally happy if we win.”
It’s simply about understanding the dynamic nature of the sport where there isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to win games.
“Ultimately, I want to win games and there are many ways to win games. It depends on the team you have and the things you have to do, and you try to get them done,” Lodi explained.
“This is not basketball or football, where you can have a certain style of play that distributes the ball. Volleyball is different. It's not something we always say, like ‘hey, we're going to have everyone scoring.’
“That depends.”
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