Qatar gives Gilas a big lift

MANILA, Philippines - There was sporadic cheering from the half-empty arena as Qatar held off a rallying Chinese-Taipei, 71-68, in the process enhancing Gilas Pilipinas’ bid for the coveted top spot in Group E of the FIBA-Asia Championship.

Had Qatar beaten Taipei by 16 points, the oil-rich nation would have gotten a hold of the No. 1 spot and would have dropped the Philippines to No. 2 for a more dangerous quarterfinal showdown with China.

Instead, the host is headed for a quarterfinal duel with Kazakhstan, a team it defeated in a friendly match just days ago.

After the game, cheers from an appreciative local fans were not lost on the members of the Qatar team and Aussie coach Robert Wisman.

“I think I could run for president of the Philippines now,” said Wisman, eliciting laughter inside the press room.

“And I might get a few votes,” he added.

Qatar came close to pulling off a huge winning margin over Taiwan as it led, 68-56, with four minutes left but failed to pad the lead.

“We came into the game with the mindset that we had to win by 16 points,” said the Qatar coach, Australian Robert Wisman.

“But we didn’t have enough gas to get that done. We just had enough to win the game,” he added.

If Qatar beats South Korea in the quarterfinals, it gets a rematch with the Philippines in the semis. The top three teams here will advance to the 2014 World Championship in Spain.

The game against Taipei was marked by 11 deadlocks and 11 lead changes. It was tight in the end.

The Taiwanese, the only team so far to beat the Filipinos in this tournament, made a run in the end and almost stole the game

But the Qataris were willed to win – by any margin.

“We weren’t really concerned who we’re playing in the next game. We play every game to win,” said Wisman.

During the postgame interview, the Australian mentor still couldn’t get his mind off his team’s 90-71 loss to the Philippines the other night.

Also in that game, a victory could have made things a lot easier for them.

“We had (played) our A-game unfortunately in one quarter against the Philippines we played our F-game in the second quarter. If we only played our B or C game we may have finished at the top of our group,” said Wisman.

But he sure knew what the victory over Taipei meant for the Philippines.

And the result certainly gave him some measure of popularity among Filipino fans, especially if Gilas moves into the medal round.

A couple of Pinoy scribes pressed Wisman on his sudden political leaning, and the former head coach of the Japanese team was still in a humorous mood.

“How many votes do you think can I get,” he asked.

“At least 20,000, which is the capacity of the arena,” was the answer.

He laughed and walked away.