Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone is sticking with the same roster for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup qualifier November window.

Cone clarified that no additional names will be put in the pool as he intends to keep a lean selection.

“To be honest, absolutely not,” Cone said when asked about changes in his lineup in a press conference on Monday at the TV5 Launch Pad.

“I know that’s been out there. I guess someone wrote something that I was going to do. I think it was misunderstood. We’re not gonna expand the pool.”

Cone explained that adding new players who will adapt to his system in just a short preparation time might do more harm than good.

The Philippines will host New Zealand on 21 November before playing Hong Kong three days later. Both Gilas and New Zealand are unbeaten in two games.

Cone’s concern is that with the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) opening its 49th season next month and with the start of the collegiate season, Gilas needs to align the players’ schedule to start their training.

And it won’t happen until at least two weeks before the qualifiers.

“Again because of the short preparation time that we have, the teaching part of the team is much harder if you have a big pool. If you have 18 guys in the team, then you have to teach all 18 with your assistants,” he said.

“It gets unwieldy and difficult to do that, especially if you’re talking about 10 days or seven days (of preparations) or something. If you have a whole season or a whole-year season to teach 18 guys then you can teach all 18 easily over a period of time.”

Gilas has 14 players in the pool including injured forward Jamie Malonzo, big man AJ Edu and guard Scottie Thompson.

Cone was forced to field an 11-man Gilas in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga, Latvia after Thompson had to withdraw due to nagging back problems.

The Nationals scored an upset over world No. 6 Latvia before losing in a close match against Georgia to advance into the semifinal.

Gilas fell short of ending a 52-year Summer Games absence after absorbing a 60-71 loss to eventual Paris Olympics qualifier world No. 12 Brazil.

“We were good with 11 guys in the last OQT. We only played 10, actually in the OQT. I feel really bad about this — we never got Mason Amos to play. And one of the main reasons we didn’t get Mason Amos to play is because he was new to the team and w e really didn’t get him into the system well enough," he said.

"Because he wasn’t in the first window, we just didn’t feel comfortable with him really being comfortable in the system that’s why he didn’t play,” Cone added.

The 25-time PBA champion coach is crossing his fingers for Thompson and Edu's return in Gilas’ next tour of duty.

“Hopefully, we’ll get Scottie back, we just don’t know exactly. But I think he’ll be back by November,” he said.

“AJ says he wants to play in November. The only one that’s maybe doubtful for November would be Jamie Malonzo.”