Gilas Pilipinas hit the ground running in its final days of preparations for the 33rd FIBA Asia Cup upon its arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

After a 10-hour flight from Manila late Wednesday to the Middle Eastern country’s second largest city, the Filipinos, after some rest, buckled down to training at the Manara Sports Academy Friday (Manila time).

Gilas coach Tim Cone emphasized the importance of arriving in the host country early for his wards to acclimatize and adjust their body clock to local time.

The decorated mentor is also looking to take advantage of Gilas’ early check-in before the start of the 5 to 17 August competition to add more details to their system, address areas of improvement and fully integrate some of his players who are late or have not joined training back in the Philippines.

“We realized that getting here early, adjusting to the time, adjusting to the weather, and having extra time to practice is really important for us,” Cone said.

“And we feel, I think, a lot better about ourselves this time around. And I think it’ll show up in our game.”

Gilas has a few more days to get ready before it embarks on an arduous mission to bring home the championship, 40 years since the last Philippine squad ruled the continental tournament.

The 12-man Gilas got to stretch their legs and warm up before taking on Jordan in its final tune-up match slated Saturday.

Calvin Oftana got to join the training session but center June Mar Fajardo was given some extra time to rest.

Both skipped Gilas’ 103-98 sendoff game win over the Macau Black Bears last Monday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum to rest following a grueling Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup finals series.

Oftana sprained both his ankles in TNT’s spoiled grand slam bid while Fajardo has been dealing with a calf issue since the semifinals.

Gilas will open its campaign on 6 August against Chinese Taipei before taking on New Zealand (8 August) and Iraq (10 August) in Group D.

Gilas management did a better job of pacing the national team’s preparation compared to a hectic and tiring itinerary in the disastrous third window of the Asia Cup qualifiers last February.

The Filipinos at that time played a four-nation pocket tournament in Doha just days before flying to Taiwan and New Zealand for the qualifier’s road games, which resulted in Gilas getting blown out after a perfect 4-0 record in the first two windows.

“To be honest, the last window that we did, we wanted to make it as hard as we possibly could. Because once you figure that this is going to be hard, everything else is easy afterwards. So, we were really intent on making that as hard as we could,” Cone admitted.

“And it was, it was incredibly hard.”

Gilas is confident its preparation will be better this time and hopefully earn positive results.