SEVILLE, Spain – Gilas Pilipinas is leaving this ancient Andalucia capital city done with a wonderful job of reintroducing the country in the world basketball scene and in the process capturing the imagination of the Filipinos around the world.
With their proud stand in five nights of battle here, the Filipinos restored their identity of belonging with the world, affirming they’re not just one of those teams from Asia.
With one win and three near upsets, Gilas made an impact in a performance that should inspire Philippine basketball to dream on.
Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Manny V. Pangilinan is convinced the Nationals pulled off a feat to be proud of, making the World Cup regulars no longer to wonder: “Gilas who? Gilas what?”
Pangilinan has no doubt in his mind coach Chot Reyes and his team has awakened the world to Philippine basketball, its proud fighting heart and its own brand of play.
“On the whole, we did well,” said Pangilinan in the farewell dinner of the Philippine delegation here.
“On the whole, you could see the whole world waking up to Philippine basketball and I’m happy about it,” said the Philippine national team program bankroller.
Pangilinan is pleased with the fact that Gilas Pilipinas wound up the best Asian team in the 24-team tournament.
“We’re benchmarking the two other Asian countries which participated in this tourney. The losing margin of Korea was over 100 points, Iran was much, much higher than us. Buying that token, we did very well,” said Pangilinan.
Korea was blown out in each of its five games in Group D play while Iran won by 15 over Egypt but lost in lopsided manner in other four games in Group A competition.
Gilas Pilipinas, meanwhile, would be remembered for long not only by Senegal but also by Croatia, Argentina, Puerto Rico and Greece.
“Hindi lang tayo pinalad, muntik na sa atin ang Croatia, Argentina and Puerto Rico,” said Pangilinan.
Pangilinan said they will take a deeper look at their World Cup performance in their return to Manila with the future international competitions in mind.
“I’ve told Chot let’s sit down after Spain in Manila and do a forensic post-mortem on what went right and assess what is needed in the Asian Games, and looking forward to the 2015 qualifier for the Olympics and the qualifier for the next world championship,” said Pangilinan.
“We have to prepare for that because most of these players will be too old for 2019. By that time, (Andray) Blatche is what? 34? Dapat mag-isip-isip tayo especially if we get lucky to host the next world championship,” Pangilinan added.
Yes, Pangilinan is dreaming on.
“Kailangan ‘yon. Otherwise, wala tayong pupuntahan,” he pointed out, adding they’re serious in their plan to bid for the hosting of the next World Cup.
“If we perform poorly compared to Spain (Spanish WC), that would be embarrassing. We have to do better,” he said.