Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone during a Fiba OQT Riga game against world No. 6 Latvia. –FIBA PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone made it clear he won’t be expanding the national team pool.
During a press conference in Mandaluyong on Monday, Cone was asked if he would consider adding more players to his pool after being plagued by injuries.
Cone was quick to turn down the idea.
READ: Tim Cone ponders what could’ve been for Gilas with healthy AJ Edu
“To be honest, absolutely not,” said Cone.
“I know it’s been out there, I guess someone wrote that I was going to do that and I got misunderstood. We’re not going to expand the pool. Because of the short preparation times we have, the teaching part in a team will be much harder if you have a big pool.”
Originally a 12-man pool with two reserves, Gilas went to battle at the Fiba Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga, Latvia with only 11 men due to injuries.
AJ Edu, Jamie Malonzo and Scottie Thompson were ruled out just weeks before the OQT, leaving the Philippines with the decision to bring in both reserves Mason Amos and Japeth Aguilar.
Despite all circumstances, Gilas defeated Latvia in the group phase to post the Philippines’ first win over a European team in a global tournament after quite some time.
READ: Fiba OQT: Tim Cone rues Kai Sotto absence in Gilas loss to Brazil
The only time Cone would be open to an expanded Gilas pool is if a global competition would give teams almost a year of preparation.
Obviously, that’s well near impossible at this point.
“If you’ve got a whole season or a year where you can teach 18 guys then you can do that easily but with short preparation times, it takes a longer time. That’s even an exaggeration,” Cone said. “That’s why we decided to go with a tight smaller pool because the teaching is less with a shorter preparation time.”
“I would prefer to have a bigger pool, but I would also prefer to have a longer preparation time, any coach would, but it’s just not feasible so we have to work with what we have.”