TIM Cone admitted Gilas Pilipinas will just have to play with an all-Filipino crew starting Friday against Jordan as the two other prospects who could fill in the void vacated by Justin Brownlee are unavailable.
Bennie Boatwright, the sharpshooting former San Miguel Beer gunner, couldn’t get his Philippine passport in time.
On the other hand, naturalized big man Ange Kouame is currently under contract to play in France.
“In the meantime, we couldn’t get Bennie Boatwright his papers,” Cone said last Monday in Gilas Pilipinas’ press conference at the SM Mall of Asia Arena. “He still doesn’t have his passport. He hasn’t had his final approval yet. We haven’t been able to get that done.”
“Our other naturalized player that we would have brought, Ange Kouame, he is in France under contract,” he added.
Brownlee has been deemed unavailable for the second round of the FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers, as announced by Cone in the same press conference.
The sweet-shooting Brownlee continues to recover from multiple injuries to his knee, leg and hamstring, a situation that forced him to miss Gilas’ away game against Australia during the third and final window of the Asian Qualifiers last July.
With the reinforcements not available, Cone said they head to the fourth window with no recourse but to play all-Filipino.
“So we are going to be attending this window all-Filipino,” said Cone, whose Gilas side will close the fourth window against Iran on Aug. 30.
Cone, though, believes Gilas has the material to compete against Jordan and Iran, two solid West Asian squads, who shared joint first place in Group C during the first round with identical 5-1 records.
Gilas, on the other hand, limped to a 2-4 card entering the second round, while hopeful that the return of young big man Kai Sotto could bolster the national team’s chances to sweep its home games.
“With Kai here, June Mar (Fajardo), and AJ (Edu), we feel we have the requisite size to be successful in this window,” Cone said.
