End of the road

Gilas Pilipinas had the noble intention of restoring the Philippines’ old basketball glory on the Asian level.

However, circumstances during its buildup and the sustained development of continental rivals found Gilas wanting.

The vision of ending a four-decade title drought remained nothing but a mere dream on Wednesday when the Filipinos hit the end of the road in their 2025 FIBA Asia Cup journey.

Other than the moral victory of Gilas’ return to the quarterfinal after missing the cut in the 2022 edition, the Philippines will return home from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia empty-handed.

Missing in the Filipinos’ flight back home is the shiny championship trophy — an all too familiar scene since winning it all back in 1985.

“And so, you know, the tournament is over for us. In the big scheme of things, we’re not pleased with what happened,” Gilas head coach Tim Cone said following a heartbreaking but not surprising 60-84 demolition under the might of three-peat-seeking Australia Wednesday night at the King Abdullah City.

Seven three-pointers rained down by the Boomers in the first quarter were all it took for Gilas to crumble in front of the mostly Filipino crowd, which trooped to the venue hoping for a miracle that never came.

“This is a great team to be around. And I’m really proud and honored to be on this team and with these guys,” Cone said.

“But tonight, was not a good performance for us.”

It was.

Australia was in full control and even went ahead by 26 points for their fifth win over the Philippines in six head-to-head meetings.

Gilas, thus, ended its run with just two wins in five outings.

It wasn’t the ending Gilas wanted but the way it set its campaign in motion pointed to that doomed direction.

In fact, Gilas barely made it to the quarterfinal after a crushing back-to-back setback in the group stage against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand.

The Nationals absorbed an 87-95 loss to the Taiwanese in their Group D debut, followed by a 94-86 defeat to the Tall Blacks — the two teams that routed Gilas in the third window of the Asia Cup qualifiers last February.

Gilas fanned its flickering hopes with a 66-57 win over Iraq, which actually led by six after the opening period, to secure a playoff for a quarters seat.

Naturalized player Justin Brownlee rescued Gilas from the jaws of defeat with the game-tying three-pointer in the last second of regulation to force overtime and eventually repulse host Saudi Arabia, 95-88, for a Last Eight seat.

And that was it.

“I really like our team. I like the way we play. I like the togetherness there,” Cone said.

“They’re all good guys and they’re easy to coach. But didn’t like our performance tonight. I didn’t think we stepped up as much as we wanted to.”

Looking back, Gilas’ preparation could be pointed as a culprit.

Three weeks of training without some key players proved to be disastrous.

Eight-time Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo, his San Miguel Beer teammate CJ Perez and Calvin Oftana joined the build up late as the training fell on the same schedule as that of the Philippine Cup finals.

Fajardo and Oftana skipped the sendoff game against the Macau Black Bears to rest their calf and ankle injuries, respectively. Integrating Fajardo as the main center with Kai Sotto still out because of a knee injury posed a huge problem for Cone’s system.

It didn’t help that Oftana and Perez sustained ankle injuries on the way to the quarterfinals. The two were helpless on the bench watching the Aussies beat the hell out of Gilas.

But the biggest factor was the PBA players’ struggle in international play. Their presence was barely felt as workhorse Justin Brownlee looked to the young guns and non-PBA players Dwight Ramos, Kevin Quiambao, AJ Edu and even reliever Carl Tamayo for help offensively.

It wasn’t enough.

Licking its wounds, Gilas can only pick itself up and prepare for the next big battle ahead: the FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers starting in November.

But it ain’t gonna be easy as Gilas will have to deal with New Zealand and Australia once again, with Guam also posing as a threat in the double round-robin home-and-away format.

Gilas better start preparing as soon as possible.