Gilas Asiad campaign doomed right from start

INCHEON, South Korea -- Gilas Pilipinas' campaign here was doomed even before the 17th Asian Games started.

Gilas' series of misfortunes in this tournament started with new naturalized player Andray Blatche getting disqualified to play due to the three-year residency rule by Olympic Council of Asia, which is independent from FIBA, the world's basketball governing body.

"Blatche is eligible to play in FIBA Asia and Worlds. We can't understand why he can't play here, Gilas coach Chot Reyes rued.

"Coming in I had very modest individual expectations. We had 6 days to practice with Marcus. We lost dray and Jayson," Reyes added.

Castro was struck out of the lineup due to an achilles heel injury sustained in the FIBA World Cup. Add to that the short time of preparation and getting old naturalized player Marcus Douthit into game shape.

Gilas played five tough, four of them heartbreaking games in Seville, Spain two weeks prior to this tournament.

"In Asian games it's how to play 4 straight games being the smallest team in the league," Reyes said.

And it looked like the fatigue factor set in as Gilas came out flat against Qatar, just under 24 hours of another heartbreaking setback at the hands of Asian rival Iran.

"But really the story of this tournament was that loss to Qatar," Reyes added.

He came under fire when Douthit was sat out in the 95-97 loss to Korea on Saturday for disciplinary reasons.

Douthit returned with a redemption game finishing with a monster double-double of 18 points, 14 rebounds and three shot blocks but was not enough to keep Gilas' slim semis hopes alive.

Despite the ugly ending to their campaign here, Reyes finds little consolation in their gritty stand against tournament favorites Iran and host Korea.

"We learned  lessons playing Iran and how competitive we are with them already. And we played Korea tough even without Marcus," Reyes said.