Anthony Garbelotto is doubling down on Vietnamese basketball this year.

The U.K. native, who took over as head coach of the Saigon Heat of the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) has just seen his workload increase exponentially after being named bench boss for the resurrected men’s national basketball team.

Vietnam has not fielded a men’s squad in more than five years, so Garbelotto has his work cut out for him with little more than two months to choose a squad to compete at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Singapore in June.

“It is a big honor to be leading the Vietnam Men’s basketball team into the SEA games for the first time in a number of years,” he said in an exclusive with the Times. “I think the time is right for the team to start to compete with the best teams in Southeast Asia again.”

Garbelotto is well-acquainted with a number of the players attending the upcoming training camp, such as the Heat’s Phan Tran Man, Nguyen Thanh Nhan, Tran Tien Thinh and others. With the training camp starting April 20 in HCMC with 16 invitees, an even dozen will be selected by June 4 for the return of Vietnamese basketball to the SEA Games in June. Of that group, a number have the luxury of getting plenty of face-time with the head coach of Vietnam’s only pro hoops squad, so any with aspirations at that level need to impress in the time they have.

“Only time will tell to see who develops and has the desire to play at the next level,” Garbelotto said. “Any game played in international competition can only benefit our local players. This is really what they lack.”

For now, the focus will be on getting ready for the region’s top amateur sports tournament. The SEA Games run June 5-16 in Singapore.