Gilas Pilipinas shifts focus on Olympic qualifiers

(UPDATE) FOLLOWING Gilas Pilipinas’ two-game sweep of the first window of the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers, coach Tim Cone said they are now setting their sights on the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga, Latvia slated this July.

And this early, Cone bared that the Philippine team has invitations to play against Lithuania, Slovenia and even the Czech Republic as Gilas tries to keep the Olympic dream alive for the 2024 Paris Games.

The only concern is, the PBA, NCAA and UAAP, along with Japan B.League squads have unilaterally agreed to only allow players to be with Gilas 10 days prior to the national squads first official FIBA game.

“It’s not like we can come out and prepare for months or even weeks. It’s just like the agreement is 10 days before we actually play the first game against Latvia. It might be 10 days here in the Inspire (Sports) camp, or try to find some friendlies against European teams so we can get feel of the way they play,” Cone told media men after Gilas’ 106-53 demolition of Taiwan at the close of their first window on Sunday night at the PhilSports Arena.

“We got some invitations from Lithuania, Slovenia and Czech Rep. We’re gonna work out through those. We’ll see what we can do,” he added.

The 66-year-old Gilas mentor said national players like Sotto, Dwight Ramos and AJ Edu (who is still recovering from a torn meniscus) are heading back to Japan to resume playing for their B.League teams.

And given the globalization of basketball and Filipino talents now taking their acts to Japan and Korea, Cone said they will have to roll with the punches and adjust accordingly.

“You always wish you have more time to prepare, but while ending this whole thing, (we’re) trying to figure out the system on which we can get the best players to play with us,” he said.

“The problem is you want more preparation, how you gonna get Kai here earlier to play. We don’t have control over Japan (B.League) whatever so then there’s disruption in the leagues, and all of a sudden, it’s hard to get this guy or that guy, so we try to come with a system that says, ‘OK, this is what we’re gonna do, and we try to get the best out of it.’

“I wish we can keep this thing going, but it’s out of our control. We will live with what we have, part of our challenge.”

Gilas is scheduled to play Latvia and Georgia in Group A in Riga from July 2 to 7 for the FIBA OQT as the Philippines try to keep its Olympic dream alive in Paris this year.