FILE–Gilas Pilipinas celebrates after beating South Korea again in the Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers in Clark. FIBA PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Gilas Pilipinas Chot Reyes admitted that South Korea’s sudden withdrawal disrupted the team’s preparations for the upcoming Fiba World Cup Asian Qualifiers.
Hit by COVID-19, South Korea has reportedly decided to skip the tournament.
Gilas was supposed to open its campaign against South Korea on February 24. The two rivals were also scheduled to play on February 28.
“Obviously, it throws a monkey wrench in our preparations because we have been preparing for Korea the past couple of days for the past week actually,” said Reyes on his Instagram on Wednesday.
“But having said that, we’d like to think that we’ve built this team on versatility. Agility was one of the first things we talked about on the very first day of practice for we really have to be prepared for whatever comes.”
Reyes stressed the most important thing for Gilas is to stay focused.
“What we’ve learned in this environment that we’re playing in now is that you can never really know what to expect and this is such one thing,” he said.
“So right now, the best thing that we can do is to stay ready, to be prepared. The only thing we can focus on is our own health. We’ve very happy that our RT PCR test results came out today and we’re all negative.”