GILAS 'NOT READY' YET FOR FIBA OQT – CONE

(UPDATE) TIM Cone expects the entire Gilas players to approach its two upcoming friendly games versus Turkey and Poland with a learner's attitude as part of their build up for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Riga, Latvia.

Gilas left on Tuesday night for Europe with high hopes that the friendly games will give players a feel of playing against European players.

And more importantly, the Europe trip will teach Gilas players additional lessons that could serve them in good stead heading to the OQT.

"I love it," Cone said, when asked what he felt upon learning Gilas will play Turkey and Poland. "Poland's No. 15 in the world, so they're gonna give us a good feel, and Turkey's No. 24 but they're much better if their NBA guys show up."

Considering that Gilas' OQT preparations only consisted of three days of training camp and a friendly match against the Taiwan Mustangs last Monday, Cone admitted Gilas is not close to being ready to wage war in Riga.

"No. Not at all. I don't expect to be ready at this point. We're not ready — that's why we're still practicing and playing friendlies so we could get ready," stressed Cone, whose team managed to score a 74-64 win over the Mustangs on Monday night in their send-off game.

"If we play tomorrow, we'll be in deep, deep problems."

After the two European friendly games, Gilas plunges into action against host country Latvia, ranked No. 6 in the world, on July 4 at 12 a.m. (Manila time) to kick off its FIBA Olympic Qualifying campaign in Riga.

The Philippines then faces Georgia (ranked 23rd by FIBA) also on July 4 at 10:30 p.m. (Manila time). All three squads are bunched at Group A.

Group B is composed of Brazil, Cameroon and Montenegro.

The top two teams from each group will move to the crossover semis. From there, the top two surviving squads dispute one of the four remaining spots for the Paris Olympics.

2024-06-26T16:26:29Z dg43tfdfdgfd