More Pinoy 100-point feats

FOUR 100-point performances by a homegrown athlete in Philippine basketball history surprisingly have yet to be authenticated or documented by Wikipedia in its worldwide “List of basketball players who have scored 100 points in a single game.”

Significantly, three of those performances were registered in a high-profile collegiate league in Cebu City. Moreover, two of them were accomplished by one player by the name of Julian A. Macoy, whom I met and engaged in a conversation in a recent trip to Sugbu.

Macoy knocked in 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.).

One year later, Macoy torched the Cebu trade School for 126 markers in just 28 minutes of a CCAA contest, making him the only homegrown Filipino ever to record a pair of 100-point performances in PH basketball annals.

A big-sized plaque with a replica of Macoy’s No. 6 Warriors jersey hangs along the corridors of the University of San Carlos gymnasium.

Macoy was a teammate of the late national team player Rogelio (Tembong) Melencio with the Yutivo Opels in the old semi-professional league, Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), after his school years.

Macoy later found employment in the United States and stayed there for 11 years before returning to Cebu in 2005 to become the CESAFI deputy commissioner. He quit the post in 2012 to take the head coaching job with the USC Warriors in the CESAFI basketball competitions.

Macoy was replaced by former pro Junthy Valenzuela as USC bench boss this past CESAFI season but remains a Warriors consultant until now.

The only other Cebuano to surpass the 100-point barrier is Felix Duhig of Cebu Institute of Technology.

Duhig tallied 112 points in a CCAA game against the Cebu School of Arts and Trades (now known as the Cebu Technological University) in 1990.

In that contest, Duhig also registered 30 three-pointers for the all-time single-game record in PH collegiate history.
Duhig subsequently saw action with Crispa in the now-defunct Philippine Basketball League (PBL) and was selected 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 circuit.

The fourth 100-point Filipino marksman is Cesar A. Dumlao, a government official during the martial law regime of authoritarian ruler Ferdinand E. Marcos.

The diminutive Dumlao undoubtedly owned an excellent shooting touch (meaning: he can put the rock into the hoops consistently with his set shot). However, most hoop fans took lightly the government league that he played in between the 1970s and early 1980s.

How can anyone take Dumlao’s feats seriously when the opposition often left him unguarded (out of respect for the position he held in the 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 (GCAA) could hardly be deemed “official” in nature.

For whatever its worth, the then-50 years old-or-more Dumlao once scored 148 points for the National Irrigation Authority in the GCAA, an inter-government department competition that also featured teams from the National Grains Association, Masagana 99 and Maisagana 77.

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

Hoisting the rock a hundred times in a 40-minute game – official or unofficial – is already hard enough and real tiresome. And to make them with a 50 percent accuracy is simply phenomenal.

My five cents’ advice, though: Don’t try it even at your own gym. It could be hazardous to your health.