Who is the only Pinoy to score 100 points in a game twice?

THERE have been seven 100 points-or-more feats by a Filipino basketball player. Luis (Lou) Salvador’s 116 points for the Philippines in the gold-medal game against China during the 1923 Far Eastern Games in Osaka, Japan, Jeron Teng’s 104 for Xavier School against Grace Christian College in a 2011 Metro Manila Tiong Lian Basketball Association high-school contest against Grace Christian College, and Clark Quijano’s 120 for AMA Computer University in a 7th Mariano Bondoc Cup high school competition against Lord’s Grace Christian School last October all were documented in Wikipedia’s “List of basketball players who have scored 100 points in a single game.”

However, four other 100-point games by a Filipino baller have yet to be documented by Wikipedia for unspecified reasons. It’s possible no one has come forward to authenticate these games.

Three of those games were registered in a Cebu collegiate league. Julian A. Macoy chalked up 101 points as a freshman with the Colegio de San Carlos (now known as the University of San Carlos) in a 1957 game against Cebu Normal School in the Cebu Collegiate Athletic Association (the precursor of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc.).

A year later, Macoy torched the Cebu Trade School for 126 in just 28 minutes in a CCAA contest, making him the only Filipino ever to record a pair of 100-point performances in Philippine basketball history.

Another Cebu collegiate player also surpassed the 100-point barrier. Felix Duhig of Cebu Institute of Technology collected 112 points in a CCAA match against Cebu School of Arts and Trades (now known as Cebu Technological University) in 1990.

In that game, Duhig registered 30 three-pointers for the all-time single-game record in PH college annals. Duhig later played in the Philippine Basketball League (PBL) for Crispa and was picked by Alaska in the second round of the 1993 Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) draft.

Despite his offensive prowess, Duhig failed to make it to Asia’s first professional league. The fourth 100-point Filipino scorer is Cesar A. Dumlao, a government official during the martial law era under Ferdinand Marcos.

Dumlao, indeed, owned a nice shooting touch (meaning: he can put the rock into the hoops consistently with his set shot). However, most took lightly the government league that he played in between the 1970s and early 1980s.

How can anyone take the pint-sized Dumlao’s feats seriously when the opposition often left him unguarded (out of respect for the post he held in government) during the games and the league even had a novel four-point rule?

With a four-point rule that was – and still is – not endorsed by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the games in the Government Commercial Athletic Association could hardly be deemed “official.”

Moreover, the GCAA games were played at his own gym – the Dumlao Gym. For whatever its worth, the then-50 years old-or-more Dumlao once tallied 148 points for the National Irrigation Authority in the GCAA, an inter-government department tournament that also featured teams from the National Grains Association, Masagana 99 and Maisagana 77.

Okay, let us give Dumlao some credit. Outside of him, I have yet to come across another 50-year-old local who could light up the scoreboard for that many points.

Hoisting the rock a hundred times during a 40-minute game – official or unofficial – is already hard enough and real tiresome. And making them at a 50 percent rate is simply phenomenal. Don’t try it at your own gym.  It could be hazardous to your health.