MANILA, Philippines — A new-look Gilas Pilipinas left Manila and flew to Suwon, South Korea on Wednesday as the national team is scheduled to play in a two-game friendly with the Korean national squad this coming weekend as part of its build up for the Asian Games next week in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
Gilas will go up against the Korean national squad on Friday, and Sunday as the team tries to fine-tune and apply everything it has learned, before flying to Japan for the Asian Games.
The national squad bound for the Asian Games will be an all-PBA squad under coach Tim Cone, who is just a few days removed from leading the Philippine team.
That national squad is backstopped by Kai Sotto, June Mar Fajardo, AJ Edu, Dwight Ramos and Kevin Quiambao, which registered a two-game sweep of its home games against Jordan and Iran in the FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers fourth window in Manila.
Cone branded the Asian Games-bound Gilas squad to be “fun to watch” given that this team is “a little bit smaller” compared to the one he handled recently in the Asian Qualifiers.
“From what I’ve seen from that team, they’re a lot of fun to watch,” Cone told media men over the weekend, who during his FIBA preparation, delegated the Asian Games training to his lead assistant Richard Del Rosario.
“I think the fans and countrymen are going to have a lot of fun watching that team. It’s a different system. They’re not playing my system.” Since this latest Gilas squad won’t have the luxury of size, Cone admitted they intend to use their quickness in trying to compete, in the hopes of defending the country’s Asian Games men’s basketball title in the Land of the Rising Sun.
"They are playing a different system, more of an uptempo, push the ball, because they are a little bit smaller. They are smaller because they don’t have Kai, AJ, and June Mar playing. So they are smaller,” Cone described.
Leading this Gilas squad are high-scoring guard Robert Bolick of NLEX, Rain or Shine’s shift gunner Adrian Nocum of Rain or Shine, San Miguel Beer’s sweet-shooting Jerrick Ahanmisi and Blackwater’s Sedrick Barefield.
RJ Abarrientos, Justin Arana and Justine Baltazar serve as the only holdovers from the Gilas squad that played in the recent FIBA tournament.
The Gilas pool also includes TNT big man Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, Magnolia’s Zavier Lucero, SMB sharpshooter Don Trollano, while recent pullouts include Caelan Tiongson, along with Jason Perkins and Jordan Heading.
Cone said they’ve reserved a spot for Justin Brownlee, hoping the naturalized player could join the team in time for the Asian Games.
The 38-year-old Brownlee has missed Gilas’ lats three games in the FIBA tournament as he recovers from multiple injuries to his knee, leg and hamstring.
The Philippines hopes this latest Gilas squad could retain the Asian Games gold it won in the 2023 edition in Hangzhou, China.
The basketball championship marked the country’s first since the 1962 edition in Jakarta, Indonesia.
