Experience from Spain trip vital for Gilas
Credit to Author: EDDIE G. ALINEA| Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 16:18:17 +0000
Adjustments on what they learned from their nine-day training trip in Spain will be the main focus of national coach Yeng Guiao and his boys in the remaining days of their build up program before leaving for China for the 2019 FIBA World Cup.
The team will be leaving for Foshan in China on August 29 for their Group D series with Italy, Serbia and Angola. But before that Guiao wants an assessment on the experience his boys gained from a pocket tournament in Malaga.
The Filipinos will be playing against Italy on 31, Serbia next on September 2 before closing the Group D phase against Angola on September 4.
All the Group D fixtures will be played at the Foshan International Sports & Cultural Arena.
“Maganda ang naging resulta ng ating training sa Spain, especially playing against African country Congo and Ivory Tower in the FIBA World Cup and we in the coaching staff want to get most of our boys’ experience from that tournament,” Guiao said.
“That is from the point of view that we will be ranged against Angola in one of our three games in Group D of the WC,” Guiao said.
“Angola kasi nang may strong chance tayong manalo so we can, hopefully, advance to the next round,” Guiao added. “Ivory Tower also resembles the African style of playing.”
The nationals were supposed to start their build up program on Monday at the Meralco Gym in Pasig City where the application and assessment of their experience will be implemented.
For Guiao and assistant mentor Ryan Gregorio, the biggest that the boys gained in the Spanish sojourn was the chemistry and bonding that was lacking in the initial phase of their preparations when they were still playing against each other in the PBA.
“In Spain, they were able to play together as teammates not enemies. So, they developed camaraderie and friendship among themselves. Kaya gumandan ang samahan,” Gregorio asserted.
“Para na silang magkakapatid ngayon,” Guiao noted.
What Guiao and Gregorio resented, though, was four of the team mainstays – June Mar Fajardo and Marcio Lassiter, both of eventual PBA Commissioner’s Cup champion San Miguel Beer, and Troy Rosario and RR Pogoy – were not in the roster that went with the trip.
“But we’ll try to make up for that in the last two weeks or so of our build up,” Gregorio assured, adding that he doubts whether Lassiter, who is suffering from MCL injury, can still make it.
On Friday and Sunday, before heading to China, the Filipinos will wrap their training up with a pair of tune-up games against the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian NBL.
Of the past 17th staging of the World Cup (formerly World Men’s Basketball Championship) the Philippines had played five times.
The Filipinos ended up third in 1954 in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where local basketball’s “Great Difference” Carlos Loyzaga was named member of the Mythical World Team.
That bronze medal finish still remains the highest by an Asian nation. Loyzaga’s feat was the first for any Asian player.