Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone — FIBA.BASKETBALL

“YEAR ONE” is on the books but as early as now, Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone is already thinking about how to further the growth of the 15-man pool in its next international sorties.

The Nationals will reassemble in February 2025 to wrap up their campaign in the third and final window of FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers (ACQ) with back-to-back gigs on hostile ground against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand (NZ).

Though their place in the Asia Cup tournament proper to be hosted by Jeddah is secured regardless of those games’ results, Mr. Cone reiterated the challenging trips to the territories of the Taiwanese and the Tall Blacks will help toughen the side moving forward.

“We’re going on the road and that’s good going to be important for us because we’re going to have to learn how to play on the road and win on the road,” Mr. Cone said after Gilas completed a 2-0 sweep of New Zealand (93-89) and Hong Kong (HK) (93-54) in this week’s second window at the MOA Arena en route to 4-0 overall in Group B.

“It’s always great to have our fans and full houses here, it’s awesome, but when we get on the road, we ought to be able to play at the same level. All our tournaments (now) are going to be on the road so we’ve got to learn how to play well on the road.”

Mr. Cone and his handpicked 12 regulars and three alternates are breaking camp after a fruitful start to their four-year program aimed at qualifying for the 2028 LA Olympics.

Highlights of the 2024 campaign were the historic upset of world No. 6 and host Latvia and strong stands against No. 24 Georgia and No. 12 Brazil in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament last July and the reversal over No. 22 NZ in the ACQ Window 2 last Thursday at home. The Nationals are unbeaten in four matches in the race for tickets to the Continental meet.

For the next battles, Mr. Cone said Gilas should work on defending the three-point shot better — a  glaring flaw in the twin home victories versus NZ and HK.

“That’s a concern we have obviously over this window because we’ve given up a lot of three-point shots,” he noted.  “You know we should get out there because we’ve got protection behind us in June Mar (Fajardo) and Kai (Sotto).”

As to suggestions to expand the pool, Mr. Cone prefers to stick with his small group to preserve continuity.

“I am less likely to want to increase the pool because the more you increase the pool, the more teaching you have to do. If you can keep a core going all the time and really focus on that core, keep it a tight group, then that core is going to get better. If you start expanding the pool, you have to go back to zero and start teaching all over again,” he said.

“Everything’s going to be assessed by year end but hopefully, the higher ups are pleased with what’s been going on and they’re going to want to keep a continuous program going. But that doesn’t mean we won’t make a tweak here or there, personnel-wise, system-wise, whatever. We could very easily make a tweak here and there, anything that can make us better moving forward.”

Notes: Amid loud chants of “We want, Dwight” in the second half of Gilas Pilipinas’ game against Hong Kong, coach Tim Cone politely said “no” to the egging crowd and kept the injured Dwight (calf) on the bench until the final buzzer.  “I’m like all the girls — I love Dwight (Ramos). I just love him for different reasons. I love him for his basketball mind and his talent, the girls love him for his looks… I would have loved to have played him but I was under orders from the training staff that he should not play. So I gotta do what’s best for him even though I know the crowd would have loved (to see Ramos in action).” — Olmin Leyba

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