The road is clear for Quentin Millora-Brown to make his international debut after Tim Cone selected him to be part of Gilas Pilipinas that will see action in the first window of the FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.

Cone made the announcement on Monday, saying that the 6-foot-11 Millora-Brown had made the 12-man roster that will face Guam on 28 November at the Calvo Fieldhouse in Yugo Village in Guam and on 1 December at the Blue Eagle Gym inside the Ateneo de Manila campus in Quezon City.

The road to representing the country wasn’t smooth for Millora-Brown.

In fact, he even hired legal experts just to convince the International Basketball Federation that he is eligible to play as a local player for the Philippines as he acquired his Philippine passport before turning 16.

“It’s been a process to get here,” the former University of the Philippines star said in a previous interview.

“When I was finally able to go through, it was a great moment. I was excited, the coach was excited, everyone was excited about being able to continue to just try and improve and play better.”

“Having the opportunity for me to come and help make the team better and shine is something that is super exciting.”

Aside from Brown, also making the cut were RJ Abarrientos, who will make his Gilas return after three years. Although he was part of the buildup for the FIBA Asia Cup last July, he was cut right after their exhibition match against the Macau Black Bears — a day before the squad left for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Rounding out the squad were Japeth Aguilar, AJ Edu, June Mar Fajardo, Chris Newsome, CJ Perez, Kevin Quiambao, Dwight Ramos, Carl Tamayo, Scottie Thompson and naturalized player Justin Brownlee.

Newly-acquired Juan Gomez de Liano, Troy Rosario and Jamie Malonzo were the final cuts. Cone, however, clarified that they are still very much part of the program.

“Those three guys are really amazing,” Cone said, stressing that coming up with the final 12-man roster wasn’t easy, especially with the way Gomez de Liano had been practicing the past couple of days.

“It was a really tough decision because Juan was practicing really well. But he’ll be on the team at some point. It just so happened that he still has to learn the system. We’ve already laid down the foundation for one in terms of him learning the system this time and being able to go next time.”

“He’s going to be a fixture on this team. Instead of saying ‘we’re sorry to Juan,’ we’re going to say ‘congratulations Juan you proved your worth and you’re going to be on this team, no doubt about it.’”