The 2019 FIBA World Cup group stage exposed Gilas Pilipinas’ weaknesses—lack of cohesion, inconsistent defense, too much dribbling and lack of reliable outside shooters.
We sure missed gunners Marcio Lassiter and Matthew Wright.
In the 2014 FIBA World Cup, coach Chot Reyes had an array of three-point gunners to surround naturalized big man Andray Blatche.
The Philippines had Jeff Chan, Jayson Castro, Jimmy Alapag, Paul Lee, LA Tenorio and Ranidel de Ocampo— all capable of knocking down three-point shots.
Save for the 12-point loss to Greece, Gilas’ three other defeats in the group stage in 2014 were decided by four points or less.
But the Philippine team concluded its group stage play by outlasting Senegal, 81-79 in overtime.
Coming from that kind of a performance, it is but natural for Pinoy hoop fans to expect a lot from this batch of Gilas squad.
The 2019 Gilas batch sure failed to meet the Pinoy hoop fans’ expectations.
But how can we fault coach Yeng Guiao when he couldn’t get a decent and complete practice during Gilas’ buildup for the World Cup?
With players not able to show up consistently in Gilas practices, one can’t expect the team to show solid chemistry come game time.
It’s no wonder Gilas went winless in the group stage, suffering blowout losses at the hands of Italy and Serbia, while dropping a heartbreaking 81-84 OT decision to Angola.
Gilas then opened the classification phase with an 86-67 defeat to Tunisia before ending the World Cup with a 75-95 defeat against long-time Asian rival Iran to finish the tournament 0-5.
At this point, it’s useless to slide into the blame game. We’ve seen this happen one too many times in the past.
Hopefully, our basketball leaders will get right down into business by the time they all return to Manila, map out a clear-cut basketball program that could right the ship as we try to sustain the gains in the international tournament the last five years.
The next FIBA World Cup will still be in 2023, which the Philippines will be co-hosting with Indonesia and Japan.
Talent is not a problem now for the Philippines since we’ve got plenty of that in college. But what we need is a sustainable program that will get the top young players play for Gilas for a number of years, get them to mature through constant exposure in the FIBA tournament so that by the time the World Cup rolls along, they’ll be competitive and ready to stand toe to toe with the basketball bigwigs again.
Inspiration & Sports 
Pingback: Will we expect a coaching change at Gilas? | Inspiration & Sports
If the Philippines wants to win, I should say make a long time preparation not only a month, create a team that exclusively for Gilas team only. Why Philippine government did not give full support for the Gilas team? They rely always to the private association. And they also rely on the miracles.
It’s time to wake up in their nightmare.