Purefoods Basketball

San Miguel Corporation is retaining the name B-Meg Derby Ace Llamados for the next conference of the Philippine Basketball Association which starts on October 3, 2010 as the sale for Purefoods may not push through. This means Petron is out and SMC may decide not to sell the whole Purefoods franchise. At least we are sure that for one more conference, they will still be called B-Meg Derby Ace Llamados.

In other news, a new head coach for Purefoods/Derby Ace has been named!

According to reports, Coach Ryan Gregorio has accepted the Head Coach Position for the upcoming Meralco team in the PBA, he will also have an executive position in Meralco along with coaching the team.

Coach Ryan has been with Purefoods/Derby Ace since 2002 as interim coach and 2003-2010 as head coach winning 3 championships in 4 finals appearance including the historic 4-0 sweep in the last Philippine Cup. Gregorio is also a three-time PBA All-Star Coach (2005/2008/2010) and a two-time PBA Coach of the Year Awardee (2002/2006)

It was also reported that Assistant Coach Jorge Gallent will handle the new Petron Team (former Derby Ace/Purefoods) but this still needs confirmation.

We want to thank Coach Ryan and Good luck in his new position.

I have been a big fan of Purefoods since 1988, and this news is really sad for all the fans of the franchise. I have been holding this news since posting it would make it real but now it is time. Purefoods will say goodbye to the PBA, unless the new owners will buy another PBA franchise in the future (which is unlikely to happen), we will never see a Purefoods Team in the PBA.

With the new owners of Purefoods not interested in the PBA franchise, San Miguel keeps its third franchise but cannot use Purefoods anymore, they can retain the B-Meg Derby Ace Llamados but there are reports that they will use the Petron brand in the next conference.

I am still thinking of changing the name of this site as this has been known as purefoodsbasketball.com since 2008, even though the core of the team is still intact with the name change it maybe hard to support a different team name.

Goodbye Purefoods!

Please watch tonight’s i-Witness documentary featuring James Yap and Philippine Basketball by Howie Severino at GMA 7 after Saksi. Also featured in this documentary are UAAP players with provincial roots like Yap, Aldrech Ramos of FEU and Cocoy Hermosisima of NU.

Let us give our all out support to our new President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III and also our new Vice-President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay.

It is time to think positive always and continue helping each other to a better Philippines.

*photo above is from noynoy.ph

Note: This is the first and last time that this site will post anything about a players/coaching staff’s personal life.