Evaluating Batang Gilas 2018

The Batang Gilas have been one of the biggest sports newsmakers of 2018. What with their appearance at the 2018 FIBA U17 World Cup in Argentina and their success at the recent 2018 FIBA U18 Asia Championship in Thailand.

These young bucks have undoubtedly showcased what true heart is and they’ve given local Filipino basketball fans a lot of reasons to hope for Philippine basketball’s bright future.

Today, I’d like to revisit the Batang Gilas program and see how it has evolved this year, eventually leading to the current iteration or generation that has made big waves not just in Asia but in the world.

First off, let’s talk about the Batang Gilas squad that went to Santa Fe and Rosario, Argentina. This is the second Philippine youth team to ever play at the U17 World Cup and though they fell short of advancing to the Quarter-Finals, they did surpass the previous team’s win total of, well, one.

The 2018 Batang Gilas U17 team started this tournament badly, losing by a mile to a Croatian team with which they were pretty evenly matched. Then they dropped their next four games to France, Argentina, Canada and Mali.

They would be able to regroup well afterwards, though, surprising U16 Africa runners-up Egypt before disposing of old nemesis New Zealand to finish with a 2-win, 5-loss slate, which was good enough for 13th overall.

I was fortunate to be with the team on that trip as their team tutor and media officer. I was in-charge of making sure they were able to still hit the books as much as possible amid the demands of competing at the world level and, in addition, I also made sure their activities and games were well-documented.

Throughout the course of the 17 days we were in Argentina, the boys certainly learned a lot both on and off the court. They saw first-hand how much difference there was between Asian competition and world level competition, especially in terms of size and skill.

Sharing a hotel in Rosario with the likes of France, Canada, Croatia and Montenegro showed the boys that, yes, we had a big 7-footer in Kai Sotto. But so many other teams were much bigger than us because they had wingmen who were 6’8 or 6’9 as opposed to our wingmen who were only around 6’2.

In our last hotel in Santa Fe, we had the Australians and Americans with us and the boys knew that these were two teams a cut above the rest. Australia was the FIBA U16 Asia champion, while Team USA had several talents who were legitimate NBA prospects.

Our boys often talked about how some of the Americans would be in the NBA as soon as 2020 while the Filipinos themselves would still probably be toiling in high school or just starting their careers in the seniors division.

It was an eye-opener and it broadened the players’ understanding of basketball’s greater context.

It was an awesome thing then that they were so open to what they experienced in Argentina and what they learned both in and out of the games.

The Batang Gilas U17 boys grew both as players and as people and at least for some of them were able to show just how much they grew by playing for Batang Gilas U18 in the 2018 FIBA U18 Asia Championship.

Kai Sotto, Carl Tamayo, Geo Chiu, Raven Cortez, and Gerry Abadiano were all handpicked to be part of Batang Gilas U18, although Tamayo eventually begged off due to injury. He was replaced by another kid who was in Argentina — UST’s Bismarck Lina — who was cut from the final 12 in the U17 World Cup but was finally going to make his appearance for Batang Gilas in Thailand.

Sotto, Chiu, Cortez, Abadiano and Lina joined some of the best and brightest young studs from the UAAP, NCAA and even a couple who were raised abroad — 6’11 University of Toledo recruit AJ Edu and Stellazzurra Academy playmaker Dalph Panopio.

Many were dubbing this unit coached by Josh Reyes as maybe the best RP-Youth Team ever. They were surely the biggest, having an average height of 6’4, two 7-footers and nearly every member of their frontline standing 6’7 or taller.

Needless to say, there were sky-high expectations.

Even when they were grouped with perennial title contender China in the first round, Batang Gilas were expected by many to sweep their group and head straight into the Quarter-Finals, which they actually were able to do.

With the combination of Sotto, Edu, Panopio and incoming NU Bulldog rookie Dave Ildefonso clicking in all cylinders, the U18 Filipinos had a statement win over China on their way to qualifying to the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup for the first in around 40 years.

They did finish with a whimper, losing to Australia and then to China, but they got the job done. The main mission was accomplished. For the second straight year, the Philippines will be competing at a youth level World Cup.

All these accomplishments have, at least for me, validated the Batang Gilas program. We may still have a long way to go in terms of having a completely robust and comprehensive grassroots development program, but at least in terms of forming a competitive national youth team that we can all be proud of, the Batang Gilas program has got that covered.