Gilas women make FIBA 3x3 debut in Mongolia

MANILA, Philippines – Fancied home bets stand in the way as the Gilas Pilipinas women’s team plunge into their debut campaign Thursday in the FIBA 3x3 Women’s Series in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Vying in the women’s pro circuit tour for the first time in partnership with Uratex Dream, the Filipina ballers take on host and No. 1 seed Mongolia at 2 p.m. to fire off Pool A play before clashing with the No. 5 seed Mongolia U-23 squad at 3:50 p.m.

Gilas, seeded last in the eight-team field, then wraps up its preliminary schedule against the fourth-seeded Ukraine at 5:40 p.m.

The Philippines is 54th in the world federation rankings compared to Mongolia, at No. 20 and Ukraine, at No. 23 — making it a tough climb to the top.

Austria, Austria U23, China U24 and Thailand are the other teams slugging it out in Pool B.

Kaye Pingol, Hazelle Yam, Allana Lim and Samantha Harada will lead the way for Gilas with hopes of raking in enough points for a qualification in the next World Cup and Olympic cycle as well as for the tour finals.

Gilas has to finish first in its group to clinch an outright semifinal ticket. A second or third place finish would propel it to the quarterfinals for a fighting chance at a semis spot.

The bottom-ranked squad in the pool play then gets the boot.

The FIBA 3x3 Women’s Series, a counterpart of the FIBA 3x3 World Tour for men’s teams, has 20 stops for the whole season before the finale in September in Hangzhou, China.