04 October 2015

Pinoys Still Proud of Gilas Players

Proud Gilas Pilipinas
They may have lost the battle, but they still won the hearts of many Filipinos because of their grit and determination as they play for country and flag despite the myriad of obstacles thrown their way.

A tall, hot-shooting China team just proved too much for Gilas Pilipinas last 3 September night, as they succumbed to a heartbreaking 78-67 loss that denied the Filipinos the FIBA Asia Championship and a trip to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Gilas started strongly but soon found itself hanging on for dear life against a Chinese team that dominated with its sheer size inside and time and again pounced on the Filipinos' zone with a barrage of three-point shots before a boisterous crowd at the Changsha Social Work Colleges Gymnasium.

Gilas started strongly but soon found itself hanging on for dear life against a Chinese team that dominated with its sheer size inside and time and again pounced on the Filipinos' zone with a barrage of three-point shots before a boisterous crowd at the Changsha Social Work Colleges Gymnasium.

But it doesn’t mean the end of road to the 2016 Olympic Games for the Philippines.

As one of the top four teams in the FIBA Asia contest, the Philippines (plus Iran and Japan) qualified to compete in one of 3 Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQT) that will happen in July 2016, a month before the Olympic Men's Basketball tournament.

The 3 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments will pit 18 national teams from different FIBA regional events.

They will be grouped into three competitions of six teams and the winner of each tournament will each get a slot in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil from August 6 to 21.

“We have to look ahead now, but not tonight,” said Baldwin, who couldn’t hide his disappointment following the loss - his second to China in a FIBA Asia final after his Jordan team's runner-up finish in 2011.

“We would like to get across the board’s support and we hope for that in the future. It would help a lot, but nobody’s really thinking about that right now.”

The 57-year-old American-New Zealander said the locker room atmosphere was ‘very down’ especially with the way the team performed on the most important game of the Olympic qualifying tournament.

“It hurts,” he admitted. We invested everything we had as basketball men to win this thing and we didn’t. It wasn’t for the lack of trying and it wasn’t for lack of commitment.

“Second place is more than honorable, but right now it feels not like first place. And not first place is not what we came here for.”

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