“Now we know, now we know we can compete.”

Gilas Pilipinas had a brilliant run in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament
PHOTO: FIBA

LESS than a year into the program under Tim Cone, Gilas Pilipinas made incredible strides as they fell two wins short of making it to Paris 2024, when the ultimate goal of the team is to qualify in the next Olympics in Los Angeles in four years.

Cone though is hopeful that this FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament campaign, which ended on Saturday, would serve as motivation to continue finding ways to improve and not settle for anything less.

“It’s an incredible disappointment for us. We are not going to jump up and down and say ‘Yehey, we did our thing and everybody was proud of us,’” said Cone during the postgame press conference on Saturday. “Hopefully, it doesn’t get into our mindset. We need to keep pushing and moving forward, getting better.”

Gilas Pilipinas came short of reaching the finals of the OQT when it bowed to world No. 12 Brazil, 71-60, behind the exploits of former NBA players Bruno Caboclo and Marcelinho Huertas.

As a silver lining, however, the Philippines wasn’t even expected to be in the semifinals of the tournament. Gilas opened the tournament with an 89-80 win over sixth-ranked Latvia, sending shockwaves to the entire basketball world.

Gilas went toe-to-toe against Georgia, before falling, 96-94, but the result was enough to pick up a semifinal spot where it met Brazil, the top seed in the other group of the Riga OQT.

Now We Know We Can Compete

Even with the defeat, Cone said the FIBA OQT will definitely be a boost to the program whose goal includes a return trip to the World Cup to be played in Qatar in 2027.

Unlike last year when it had an outright spot being the host, the Philippines must go through the qualifiers to get there again.

“The whole part of bringing this particular program together, which is different from what we had in the World Cup, is the fact that we are hopefully going to keep these guys together for the next three to four years, try to keep them together going into the next World Cup,” said Cone.

“It’s hard to talk about this right after you lose. But it’s a growth experience for us. It’s kind of like a ‘now, we know’ moment. Now, we know we can compete. How can we get that next step in which we can get a little bit better and not just compete, but win,” said Cone.

Playing in FIBA tournaments such as the Olympic qualifiers were rest is at a minimum will also be crucial to the development of the squad.

“Playing these kinds of tournaments where you are playing three games in four days, it gets harder and harder every game. These are the things that we will need to adjust to. But like I said, we didn’t expect to be here. Once we are here, we expect to win,” said Cone.

Without the Paris Olympic Games on the schedule, Gilas Pilipinas will now be looking forward to the November window when the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 qualifiers resumes with games against New Zealand on November 21 and Hong Kong on November 24, all at home.