Team USA on Batang Gilas: ‘They’re really tough’

By: Mark Giongco - 10 years ago

INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—A 60-point beating at the hands of tournament favorite United States Tuesday morning (Manila time) in the Fiba U17 World Championship is not an indication of the kind of game Batang Gilas Pilipinas played.

The final score showed 124-64 in favor of team USA. But ask the highly-talented Americans how the fleet-footed Filipinos fared against them and it would seem like it was a closely-contested game.

“Oh they’re tough, they’re really tough,” said USA guard Terrance Ferguson during a post-game interview posted on USA Basketball’s official website.

“I even talked to them after the game and told them they were probably the toughest team we played against. They’re always on. They’re running full speed the whole game. I don’t think they get tired, I really don’t think so,” the sweet-shooting Ferguson, who stands at 6-foot-6, added after lighting it up from the outside with five 3-pointers en route to an efficient 15-point outing.

The young Nationals, behind guard Jollo Mendoza, tried to compensate for their lack of height with their quickness and were keeping step with the Americans early before team USA’s seven-inch height advantage coupled with its outside shooting came to play that resulted to the lopsided victory.

“Their quickness, I don’t see a team that’s going to be any quicker than they are,” praised USA head coach Don Showalter, whose team dominated the group stages with wins over Angola and Greece before beating the Philippines to end its preliminary round campaign. “If they had a big man, they’d be a much better team from a rebounding standpoint. Obviously, our size was too much for them.”

Just how much the Americans’ size affected the game? They controlled the rebounding department, 66-26 and had 10 blocks as compared to the Filipinos’ zero.

But make no mistake, the resilient Filipinos gave all they could and though, they may not have gotten the result they wanted, they were able send a message.

“They played really hard. They have some really good guards. I was just impressed at how hard they played. They were diving on the floor, tapping the ball back out, fighting for loose balls, they played really hard,” commended the 6-foot-5 guard Tyus Battle.

“It was kind of different playing against them like that. But they just played hard defensively. I was really impressed,” Battle also said.

Team USA has an average height of 6-foot-6 with its guards even taller than the Philippines’ big men.

“If they had a couple more inches, it would have been a great game,” Ferguson said.