Gilas going for gold

It’s been 61 years since the Philippines won a gold medal in men’s 5x5 basketball at the Asian Games and FIBA Hall of Famer Caloy Loyzaga was still playing. And it’s been 33 years since the Philippines claimed a silver medal and Ramon Fernandez was still playing. That’s how long it’s been since the Philippines made it to the Asiad final.

Tonight, the Philippines battles for gold against undefeated Jordan in what will be Gilas’ most challenging task in this 19th edition of the Olympics of Asia. With only a handful of practices and a single tune-up before leaving for Hangzhou, Gilas embarked on a journey that seemed to be headed for disaster at the onset. A failure to communicate led to coach Tim Cone recruiting five ineligible players for the national team about two weeks prior to departure and hastily bringing in five replacements who were in a sacred list of 37 submitted to the Asian Games organizers as Gilas candidates. Instead of griping and sulking, Cone rallied the troops to fight, invoking love of country as motivation to sacrifice against all odds. And fight the soldiers did.

Gilas opened the campaign with an 89-61 shellacking of Bahrain, a surprise Asian qualifier to the Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Then, it was an 87-72 win over Thailand. Gilas’ roof caved in when Jordan crushed Cone’s crew, 87-62 to end the prelims. While the roof crashed down, the foundations of Gilas’ home remained strong. In the qualifier for the quarterfinals, Gilas bombed Qatar, 80-41 with Justin Brownlee scoring only nine points in 8:43 minutes. Cone played Brownlee sparingly to preserve him for the grind against Iran the next day. Sure enough, Brownlee started like a blazing house and had 34 points by the start of the fourth quarter. Iran clawed back from 21 down to almost escape Gilas but Brownlee hit a dagger three to win it, 84-83. Brownlee did it again, with another three, to push Gilas over China, 77-76, in the semis last Wednesday. It was the Philippines’ second consecutive win over China’s Serbian coach Sasha Djordjevic who chastised Gilas for “lacking in quality” at the 2019 FIBA World Cup. Djordjevic’s words have reverberated to haunt him in a classic case of karma.

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