Phl ‘surprise package’ in world caging

MANILA, Philippines - The world basketball circle hailed the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and Ukraine as the 2014 FIBA World Cup “surprise packages” after making rousing runs in their respective FIBA zones in 2013.

In welcoming the new year, the FIBA, through its website www.fiba.com, looked back at the 2013 FIBA zone championships and lauded the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and Ukraine’s feats for making it to the Aug. 30-Sept. 14 games in six cities in Spain.

They noted not many people predicted before the summer’s qualifying events that the four would make it to the sport’s biggest event, but they did.

Before the summer in the FIBA men’s ranking, Mexico was No. 32, the Philippines No. 45, Ukraine No. 50 and Egypt No. 60. They made a big jump in the ranking after the zonal competitions.

The last time any of those countries had made it to a world championship was in 1994 when Egypt made it to Toronto and came in 14th out of 16 teams.

Meanwhile, it was four decades ago since the Philippines last played in the world meet as a qualifier.

In 1978, the former Asian basketball kingpin saw action in the quadrennial event for the last time as the host country.     

It’s an understatement to say that the players, coaches and fans of the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and Ukraine are elated, according to the FIBA website story.

“Qualifying for the World Cup is a dream come true,” Egypt’s Aseem Marei said.

Marei was an All-Tournament selection at the AfroBasket where Egypt made a stunning run to the gold-medal game.

The Philippines was the first to pull off a surprise show, and it’s not lost to FIBA how the Gilas Pilipinas team mesmerized the nation for those 11 days in August at the Mall of Asia Arena.

The FIBA people stood as witness as the nation roared together celebrating Gilas’ 86-79 conquest of longtime rival Korea in their semifinal battle in the FIBA Asia Championship. 

“Gilas Pilipinas has been the toast of Manila ever since, and that’s even after the squad fell to Iran in the final one day after their triumph over Korea,” the fiba.com reported.

“Fans have been snapping up copies of the book that has been published titled “11 Days in August – Gilas Pilipinas and the Quest for Basketball Glory.”

In the all-important game against Korea, the Philippines led 71-68 midway through the last quarter, and outscored Korea, 15-11, over the last five minutes for the memorable win.

Marc Pingris and Jayson Williams played the games of their lives and led the Filipinos in their conquest of the sweet-shooting, sleek-playing Koreans.

And thus the Filipinos booked a ticket to the Spain World Cup together with host Spain, Olympic champion USA and other qualifiers France, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Serbia, Angola, Egypt, Senegal, Iran, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Dominican Republic.

Former titlists Russia, Brazil and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Asian power China lead the list of 15 teams that beat the deadline for submission of applications for the four world wild cards completing the 24-team draw.

Other hopefuls are European teams Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Poland and Turkey, African bet Nigeria and Asian squad Qatar.

The World Cup draw is slated Feb. 3.