A GILAS Pilipinas squad missing some key players and trying out some new faces gets its Fiba Asia Cup bid going today when the Nationals battle a formidable Chinese-Taipei national squad in Group B action at Wuhan Gym in Wuhan, China.
With six regulars given rest and naturalized Filipino Andray Blatche not making the trip, coach Chot Reyes will be testing Beau Belga, Jay Washington, amateurs Kevin Alas, and Garvo Lanete and former PBA Rookie of the Year Paul Lee in top-flight international action.
The Nationals battle the Taiwanese in the first game at 2:45 p.m. with the Filipinos seeking to avenge a 79-84 loss during the preliminary round of the Fiba Asia Championship in Manila last August.
That loss was the first of two the Nationals suffered in that tournament—the other to Iran in the gold-medal match—and, if just for bragging rights, Gilas will certainly go all out.
Iran, which won the last staging of this event in Tokyo in 2012, will battle host China at 7:30 p.m. with Japan taking on tall but unorthodox India at 5:15 p.m. contest in a couple of Group A games.
Tournament format calls for the top four placers from each group to advance to the crossover quarterfinals. With the withdrawal of Uzbekistan at the eleventh hour, all teams in Group B will advance.
Together with the Filipinos in that group are lightweight Singapore and Jordan, which is now being coached by original Gilas coach Rajko Toroman of Serbia.
The Philippines is using this tournament to get game action after its players played in the season-ending Governors’ Cup playoffs.
Not joining Gilas were Marc Pingris, Gabe Norwood, Jeff Chan, Jason Castro, Larry Fonacier and Jimmy Alapag.
They will get back to action when the Nationals return home next week to tackle an NBA Selection led by Blake Griffin and Kawhi Leonard in two charity games.
After that, Gilas flies to Miami for an intense two-week training camp before going to Europe to play several pocket tournaments, hopefully with Blatche, before Reyes decides on the final makeup of the squad that will play in the World Cup from Aug. 30 to Sept. 14 in Spain.