This is great, whole and true

THERE will be no easy rides for all the 18 competing teams, announced fiba.com, website of the International Basketball Federation.

The Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) starts in Manila today. There will be simultaneous OQTs in Turin and Serbia.

Gilas Pilipinas national team coach Tab Baldwin said the stakes will be high, but added he was happy enough that they would have the full backing of the nation. They also compete within their comfort zone.

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For the record, the Manila OQT is not the biggest basketball happening ever in Manila, which hosted the World Basketball Championships in 1978.

Prior to that, there was the 1963 World Championship which regrettably had to be reduced to an invitational series following the refusal of the Philippine government to grant visas to competitors from socialist nations like Yugoslavia.

The 1978 national team coached by Nicanor Jorge, by the way, was composed purely of amateur cagers as there was then an existing international ban on professional players. All the veteran Filipino internationalists, like Bobby Jaworski, Danilo Florencio, Ramon Fernandez and Bogs Adornado, were all tied down with the Philippine Basketball Association, the first pro league in Asia.

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Anyway, as a result of that 1978 set-up, games played at Araneta Coliseum did not draw well enough. In the first place, there were only few noted internationalists in foreign squads, while our active Nationals could not be considered fully competitive in the high-level world series.

It’s like this. When the Manila OQT was initially offered to Manila, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas tried to find a way to beg off. But it took no time for SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan to reconsider and accept the honor of hosting.

Initial response to the Manila hosting of the OQT was somewhat lukewarm. Interviews with experts and fans alike raised fears the special qualifying series may not draw well enough, considering the Gilas Philippine team would relatively be a long shot.

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Thanks to MVP, he dared make a big gamble. Not to say MVP has won ahead, but the sudden interest and excitement over the Manila OQT series augurs well for Philippine basketball.

The basketball temperature that has shot up as the OQT opening neared could already equal a fever.

Of course, the biggest sparkler will be Tony Parker, an NBA legend in his own right. But the composition of other squads, like Canada which also boost NBA biggies, has drummed up interest for what promises to be a great and true world-class competition.

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Only one team of six nations competing in Manila would be able to move on to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The Philippines must nail one of its first-round assignments, against France and New Zealand, if it hopes to enter the semifinals. Three other teams—Canada, Turkey and Senegal—compose the other bracket in Manila.

There’s no doubting Gilas Pilipinas will go all out, play with its tested fighting heart and show everybody why the Philippines has remained a throbbing part of the basketball universe.

Puso, Laban Pilipinas!