Cone satisfied with current Gilas pool

MANILA, Philippines — Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone is keen on keeping the 15-man pool of the national team intact, but admitted that everything is going to be up to assessment moving forward. 

Gilas won their matches against New Zealand and Hong Kong in the November window of the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers, which ultimately punched their ticket to next year’s continental joust in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

In the qualifiers, the Philippines fielded a 12-man roster from a 15-man pool, which included two naturalized players in Justin Brownlee and Ange Kouame, as well as injured stars AJ Edu and Jamie Malonzo. 

After Gilas’ 93-54 win against Hong Kong on Sunday, Cone said that he is “less likely to want to increase the pool.”

“I think the more you increase the pool, the more teaching you have to do and you have to keep the — if you can keep a core going all the time and really focus on that core, keep it a tight group, then that core is going to get better,” he told reporters. 

“If you start expanding the pool, you have to go back to zero and start teaching all over again everything that you've taught. So the pattern of the short windows prevents you from having those four- to six-week preparation times. Now it's five days, four days,” he added. 

“So if you bring 20 guys in, you have to teach 20 guys how to do things in four or five days, and it gets really hard. So it's better if we can tighten up. But, again, that's something we're going to assess.” 

The 66-year-old tactician emphasized that he is “just playing off the coattails of Chot Reyes and Tab Baldwin,” who were the coaches before him.

“They are the ones that got all the players. They're the ones that set this whole thing up, and I've just been able to play off of what they originally got everything together,” he said. 

Previously, Cone voiced his preference for keeping a small pool together for continuity. 

He added that by the year’s end, everything is going to be assessed, from the coaching staff to the players. 

“But hopefully everybody’s — all the higher-ups are pleased with what's been going on, and they're going to want to keep a continuous program going,” he said.

“But that doesn't mean we don't make a tweak here or there, personnel-wise, system-wise, whatever. We could very easily make a tweak here and there, anything that could make us better moving forward.” 

Gilas will compete in the next window of qualifiers in February next year against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand.