Sweet and bitter defeat for Gilas

THOUGH Gilas Pilipinas didn't make it to Paris after it absorbed a 60-71 loss to Brazil in the cross-over semifinals of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament before a full support of Filipino community and from neighboring Baltic states drove all the way to Riga, Latvia.

But country's hunt for the Olympic dream still remains, in fact, the future becomes even brighter following their impressive showing in OQT wherein the nationals beating FIBA's world No.6 ranked and host Latvia 89-80 in their opening match, before eliminating world no.25 Georgia on better quotient points, despite losing 94-96 in their second preliminary contest.

Gilas' victory over Latvia marked as the first time after 64 years a national team won over an European team . The last time Philippines beat Europeans was during the 1960 Rome Olympics over Spain, 84-82.

As the nationals wrapped up its' OQT campaign for now, their impressive performance has drawn some amount or degree of respec for their skills and talent among their competitors and even from the world governing body FIBA,as it come out with a latest power ranking with the Philippines jumping to no.10 and will be expected to raise it world ranking after this year's Paris Olympics.

What Gilas has showcase in these tournament, had proven that, we can now compete against the best team not only in the Asian continent but in the world as well.

With these impressive showing, only proved that the four-year program laid out by Gilas mentor Tim Cone, when he took over the helm, is indeed working and we're now starting to see the progress of what was the program he's trying to institute with just a few months since he took over the Gilas program, as director.

For Cone, he didn't want delved of reflect on the bad side of the defeat, but instead look at the bigger picture and look ahead in the next competitions as he said in his last interview, what his predecessor said as a "learning experienced", "its' a growth experience".

Cone's four-year program is expected to culminate in 2028 wherein the country will end up participating in the Los Angeles Olympics as the Samahan ng Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) has its full backing on the said program as it aimed will provide continuity of current set of line-up, keeping a 12-roster intact and a couple of reserve players,

And Cone's program indeed gained a lot of praises from the coaches and players from the OQT.

Latvia mentor Aleksandar Petrovic said, "they (Filipinos) were impressive, very sharp and they imposed their physicality, they always find a solution in offense". "They sagged and let us shoot, but our defense was not in the highest level" said Georgian Aleksandar Dzikic.

"The Philippines was a great team, we fought so hard and they came back, and they made some shots, they came out ready to play", said Goga Bidatze, who is playing for the Orlando Magic. "We let them played their game and they were running and we didn't made our shots and the opponent run and our defense were very bad," said Rodion Kurucs, playing for a team in the Euro league.

With these all been said, these could only mean one thing, Cone program was indeed on the right track and in the next competitions, Asia Cup, Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games World Cup and Olympics will seen a better, stronger, and world class Gilas-Pilipinas.