Gilas Pilipinas winds up with the silver medal in the 2015 Fiba Asia Championship after losing to host China Saturday night. Photo from Fiba.com
Gilas Pilipinas had the chance to enter the 2016 Rio Olympics, but bowed to China in the final and settled for silver.
The Filipinos get another crack at the Olympic berth, but only through a tougher wildcard tournament consisting of non gold medalists from all the continental tournaments.
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But Manny V. Pangilinan, the outgoing president of Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, admits that making it to the Olympics through the wildcard is a long shot.
“As we speak today, we should understand the teams we will face in July 2016 are strong basketball nations, Serbia, Puerto Rico, Greece, France,” Pangilinan said Thursday at PLDT Office. “We all know Filipinos have this trait of repaying a debt of gratitude and if we follow that we would send the 2015 Gilas team.”
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He wants Filipinos to manage expectations especially that Gilas is going to face even tougher opponents from teams outside Asia.
“But for me, let’s manage expectations. Those are strong teams we are talking about.”
Pangilinan said he’s not closing the door on the possibility of Gilas 3.0 joining the tournament, but is reluctant.
“In reality, our chances of getting into the Rio Olympics with this team are very slim,” Pangilinan said. “Might as well level with our people, with the same team, don’t expect too much.”