SEABA hosting ‘huge boost’ for Gilas

Bannering a brand new national team pool, Gilas Pilipinas is looking to get a leg up as Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) seeks to secure the hosting of the 2017 SEABA Championship.

SBP executive director Sonny Barrios shared that the Philippines had already signified its intention to host the regional competition, but SEABA has yet to act on it.

“(Seaba) has yet to give us a formal answer, but we already written them last week based on the verbal agreement we had with (Seaba president) Erick Thohir,” he said. “They met with our chairman emeritus Manny V. Pangilinan and they agreed in principle on us hosting the SEABA tournament.”

If the hosting rights are awarded to the country, the tournament may be held from April 23 to 30, but Barrio cleared that “nothing is cast in stone.”

National head coach Chot Reyes said that staging the SEABA tournament here will undoubtedly push the players’ confidence to an all-time high.

“It will be a huge boost for us because as usual for players, it’s nice to play in front of our home crowd,” he said.

“We need to win the Seaba to enable us to play in the Fiba Asia. We need to bring our strongest team in Seaba. We have to bring our best.”

Reyes is aware of the possible scheduling problems, but he is confident the coaching staff will find a way around it.

“We’ll have difficulties in August because of the Fiba Asia and SEA Games (being held at the same time), but we’ll talk about that with the SBP and the coaching staff,” he said.