Making it to the Olympics after a 52-year absence will be the ultimate goal when Gilas Pilipinas reassembles for a four-day training starting today at the Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna.
No less than head coach Tim Cone will preside over the closed-door training that aims to prepare Gilas for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Riga, Latvia set from 2 to 7 July.
Naturalized player Justin Brownlee is already in town following a fruitful stint with the Pelita Jaya in the Indonesian Basketball League while Philippine Basketball Association players like Chris Newsome of Meralco, June Mar Fajardo and CJ Perez of San Miguel Beer, Scottie Thompson and Japeth Aguilar of Barangay Ginebra, and Calvin Oftana of TNT Tropang Giga are all expected to show up.
Also expected to attend the first day of training since the first window of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers last February are abroad-based players Kai Sotto, Dwight Ramos, and Carl Tamayo as well as college stars Mason Amos of Ateneo de Manila University and Kevin Quiambao of De La Salle University.
Gilas team manager Richard del Rosario said their camp will run until the 24th and will be capped by a friendly match against the Taiwan Mustangs of Filipino-American coach Chris Gavina at the Philsports Arena.
They will leave for Turkey on the 25th to play a pair of warm-up games against the national squads of Turkey and Poland.
Del Rosario stressed that the camp will not be open to the public, including the media.
“We have a very limited time and Coach Tim wants everybody to stay focused,” Del Rosario told DAILY TRIBUNE in a telephone conversation on Thursday.
“We’ll start working on Friday until the 24th. Then, we’ll have a friendly match against a Taiwanese club before leaving for Europe on the 25th. It’s a pretty packed schedule but I’m sure everybody will be ready.”
Cone admitted that the battle will not be easy.
Gilas, for one, will be missing the services of swingman Jamie Malonzo and AJ Edu, two players who are crucial to the game plan of the noted American mentor.
Cone stressed that they will do their best to reach the Olympics for the first time since the Munich edition in 1972. They, however, will enter the Laguna camp with zero expectations knowing that the battle will not be easy, especially now that they are missing men who crucial to their campaign.
“We’re really just worried about how we start off in Inspire. (On) getting everybody together, how we’ll do day-to-day and what we do to lead up to that tournament,” Cone said.
“I think that will dictate our expectations more than anything else.”
Cone said the next couple of weeks will be grueling.
In Europe, their mettle will be tested as they face a rock-solid Latvian squad and a hungry Georgian team.
‘We have a very limited time and Coach Tim wants everybody to stay focused.’
Latvia, despite missing the services of newly-crowned National Basketball Association champion Kristaps Porzingis of the Boston Celtics, remains a force to be reckoned with following an impressive performance in the FIBA World Cup last year.
The Latvians, in fact, were supposed to make it to the semifinals and advance to the Olympics for the first time since 1936 but Davis Bertans of the Charlotte Hornets missed a potential game-winning three-pointer in the final two seconds of their 79-81 setback.
Not to be outdone, Georgia will also be a tough nut to crack.
The Eastern Europeans, who are ranked No. 23 in the world, are determined to do everything to make their Olympic debut with the imposing duo of 7-foot-1 Giorgi Shermadini and 6-foot-11 Goga Bitadze of the Orlando Magic terrorizing the paint.
Should the Filipinos emerge victorious, they will join the top two qualifiers in the other bracket that has Brazil, Montenegro and Cameroon in the crossover semifinals that will determine who will clash for the lone ticket to the Summer Games.
The men’s basketball competition of the Olympics will kick off on 27 July at the Bercy Arena with the qualifier from the Latvian OQT finding itself in early trouble as it faces Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, Nando de Colo and the rest of the French squad in its first game of preliminaries.
