Smart Gilas Pilipinas: Mission accomplished

SEVILLE, Spain – Smart Gilas, the smallest, least regarded team in a tournament of giants, is leaving this ancient city of Andalucia satisfied with its performance and elated by the respect it earned from foes and fans alike at the completion of the World Cup group stages.

The Nationals, out of the world stage for 36 years, relaunched themselves successfully as one of the respected basketball nations of the world, in the process capturing the  admiration of Filipinos and rival teams around the world and affirming they’re not longer “one of those teams from Asia.”

With one win and three near-upsets, Gilas made an impact in a performance that should inspire efforts to scale greater heights in the sport.

Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Manny V. Pangilinan is convinced the Nationals pulled off a feat to be proud of – the World Cup regulars will no longer pause to ask: “Gilas who? Gilas what?”

Pangilinan has no doubt on his mind coach Chot Reyes and his team had awakened the world to Philippine basketball, its proud fighting heart and its own brand of play.

“On the whole, we did well,” said Pangilinan  during the farewell dinner of the Philippine delegation here.

“On the whole, you could see the whole world waking up to Philippine basketball and I’m happy about it,” said the national team benefactor.

Pangilinan is pleased with the fact that Gilas Pilipinas wound up the best Asian team in the 24-team tournament.

“We’re benchmarking the two other Asian countries which participated in this tourney. The losing margin of Korea was over 100 points, Iran was much, much higher than us. Buying that token, we did very well,” said Pangilinan.

Korea was blown out in each of its five games in Group D play while Iran won by 15 over Egypt but lost in lopsided manner in other four games in Group A competition.

Gilas Pilipinas, meanwhile, would be remembered for long not only by Senegal but also by Croatia, Argentina, Puerto Rico and Greece.

“Hindi lang tayo pinalad, muntik na sa atin ang Croatia, Argentina and Puerto Rico,” said Pangilinan.

Pangilinan said they would review their World Cup performance when they return to Manila, with  future international competitions in mind.

“I’ve told Chot let’s sit down after Spain in Manila and do a forensic post-mortem on what went right and assess what is needed in the Asian Games, and looking forward to the 2015 qualifier for the Olympics and the qualifier for the next world championship,” said Pangilinan.

“We have to prepare for that because most of these players will be too old for 2019. By that time, (Andray) Blatche is what? 34? Dapat mag-isip-isip tayo especially if we get lucky to host the next world championship,” Pangilinan added.

Yes, Pangilinan is dreaming on.

“Kailangan ‘yon. Otherwise, wala tayong pupuntahan,” he pointed out, adding they’re serious in their plan to bid for the hosting of the next World Cup.

“If we perform poorly compared to Spain (Spanish WC), that would be embarrassing. We have to do better,” he said.