Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tab Baldwin. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
AS GILAS Pilipinas moves to a new phase by reverting to its roots, the national basketball program will pick up a few important lessons from a failed Olympic qualifying bid.
For starters, the team needs more of this painful defeats from world heavyweights to figure out what it takes to, well, avoid painful defeats.
“We got take a bunch of beatings at this level to learn how to play at this level,” said national coach Tab Baldwin Wednesday after Gilas Pilipinas dropped an 89-80 decision to an athletic and hot-shooting New Zealand squad to bow out of contention for a wild card slot to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
“It’s about figuring out how we get the personnel and the experience,” he added. “It’s very difficult to play at this level when you only do it so few games a year. “
“This is the pathway. And trust me, there is no other pathway.”
The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) has said it will go back to its original blueprint of building a men’s team from amateur standouts that it will groom in a multiyear program instead of relying on PBA standouts, a decision spawned by Fiba’s new competition calendar that calls for a year-round schedule.
By going back to that system, which was how the Gilas program started in the first place, the team no longer has to fit itself into the PBA schedule to train for major meets.
“This program is in its own world,” Baldwin said. “We’re always battling things internally and we’re always battling externally as well. We’re trying to lift our level; we’re trying to lift our standards.”
Competing regularly against top teams internationally will help Gilas Pilipinas develop a sense of faith in its ability to deal with adversity in the world stage, something it struggled with during the Olympic qualifying tournament here.
Baldwin wants to build on the team’s competitive performance here against higher-ranked squads France and New Zealand by taking not just its skill level but also its faith a notch higher.
“Not a dream, not a wish, but a belief (that Gilas can win),” Baldwin explained. “And I think that process is ongoing. We don’t (want) to come into big tournaments (just) to compete. We expect to come and get some wins, especially when we’re at home.”
The disappointment was palpable in the face of the national coach, but he was more than willing to dwell on the positives.
“This is a memory that we will keep with us forever,” he said. “We didn’t like the outcomes but the experience was phenomenal.”
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