With coaching future in mind, Alex Cabagnot joins UP Maroons staff

MANILA, Philippines – San Miguel Beermen veteran Alex Cabagnot has a future coaching career in mind, and one of the steps he’s taken to get closer to that goal is joining the UP Fighting Maroons’ staff for this UAAP season as their skills coach.

“I’m their skills coach. I’m helping out any way possible for [UP] Coach Bo [Perasol]. Right now I’m just doing skills with the guards and ball handling, shooting, and stuff like that,” said the 33-year-old who’s currently playing in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

“I know how patient Coach Bo is and I want to help and I want to give my coaching career a start.”

Cabagnot, who’s averaging a career-high 14.3 points a game this PBA season, also said “there’s some history behind me being with UP,” and then specified it’s because some of his uncles are from the university.

“I’m already coaching now,” he said. “I have an academy back in the States. I just want to try UAAP – such a big thing – and I just want to be a part of it.”

Cabagnot admits his new job comes with a few challenges because of his commitment with the Beermen, but tries to be present as much as he can during UP’s training sessions.

“I’m going to be here as much as Coach Bo asks me to be. He lets me go to practice. Obviously I can’t go to practice every day cause of San Miguel. He lets me go to practice whenever I can, but I try to make an effort of going to practice 3 times a week,” he said.

The Maroons lost their season-opener against the Adamson Soaring Falcons, 104-85, on Sunday, September 4. Although the final score makes the game seem like it was a blowout, UP was actually just 6 points down, 83-77, with 4:22 left in the contest.

UP, which was led by the 24 points of Paul Desiderio, rallied from a 73-57 deficit entering the final quarter.

“Today we faced [the] great shooting of an Adamson team, so the score doesn’t show the leaps and bounds we’ve had the last 4 months. It’s one game. It’s about bouncing back,” said Cabagnot.

“We played to how we usually play. That’s what I know we’ve been playing all summer long. They’re very capable, they’re hard-working guys, they pay attention to detail, so I knew they would come back from a large deficit like that.” – Rappler.com