MANILA, Philippines — Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone explained that they have included Converge big man Justin Arana and recent UAAP men’s basketball Finals Most Valuable Player Mike Phillips in an expanded list that’s strictly for the Asian Games set from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4 in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture in Japan.
The Philippines will be defending its Asian Games men’s basketball championship, a title Gilas won in 2023 in Hangzhou, China.
That men’s basketball title conquest marked the first since the country last ruled the continental basketball showpiece in 1962 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
“So we put a long list together, and it’s a list of about 30 names. Arana is a part of that list, obviously,” Cone said, whose Ginebra squad beat TNT and Bol Bol, 93-86 to secure the no. 2 seed in the PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup playoffs.
“A lot of other players are on that list, and Mike Phillips is on that list, but this has nothing to do with the windows at this point.” Of course, Cone is referring to the coming FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers windows this July where the Philippines will play two away games against New Zealand on the July 3 in Auckland, followed by Australia on July 6 in Perth.
“We haven’t really added anything to the windows, so this is just strictly for the Asian Games. Simple as that. But obviously, they’re under consideration for the Asian Games being in the long list.” The decision to come up with a long list of players in the pool was spawned from the lessons learned during Gilas’ buildup for the 2023 Asian Games.
The American mentor encountered eligibility issues on some of the players from the long list Gilas had in the 2023 edition in China.
Fortunately, Gilas managed to weather the storm and, with naturalized player Justin Brownlee leading the way, the Philippine team went on to beat Jordan in the final round to win the Asian Games gold.
“We don’t know all the eligibility rules that are going to happen. Last year, our last Asian Games, we had a long list put together, and there were a lot of players on there that didn’t get eligible. It was a long list, and at the last Asian Games, we scrambled for players at the very end because the list wasn’t representative of what the eligibility rules were,” Cone stressed.
“So we made a long list, hoping that there are certain eligibilities. These guys for sure will be eligible, and we’ll have a bigger pool to pick from. They may eliminate Fil-Ams or naturalized players. You just don’t know. You saw what happened in the Southeast Asian Games, too. So we had to make a long list. That’s why all those guys are on it.”
