GILAS Pilipinas will be competing against Brazil, Georgia, Montenegro, Cameroon and host Latvia for one spot in the Paris Games' men's basketball tournament when the Fiba Olympic Qualifying Tournament is held next year.
Gilas, ranked No. 38 in the world, avoided world No. 2 Spain and Luka Donkic's Slovenia in one of the four Olympic qualifiers to be staged simultaneously from July 2-7 2024 - each tournament with only one ticket to Paris on the line.
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But that's not to say that the reigning Asian Games gold medalist's path is lighter after the draw held at Fiba's headquarters in Mies, Switzerland, with former NBA player and now Sudan federation president Luol Deng doing the honors.
World No. 8 Latvia, which will host the qualifier in the city of Riva, and No. 12 Brazil are favored in the tournament. Montenegro is ranked No. 17 in the world while Georgia is at No. 23.
Only Cameroon at No. 67 is ranked lower than the Philippines in the world rankings.
Under the tournament format, Gilas will play Latvia and Georgia in Group A while Brazil, Cameroon and Montenegro square off in Group B. The group winners will then face off for a berth in the Paris Olympics.
Every game counts in OQT
For every tournament, wach team will play two games against teams in its own group, and the top two teams in each group move into a semifinal. First-place teams from Group A would play second-place teams from Group B, and vice-versa, at each site. Those semifinal winners will meet to decide the Olympic spot.
That should be a tall order for Gilas, considering Latvia finished fifth in the last World Cup where it went all the way to the Final 8 in Manila despite playing without top star Kristaps Porzingis of the Boston Celtics.
The Davis Bertans-led squad ousted Brazil, 104-84, and lost to eventual World Cup champion Germany by only two points.
In the other qualifiers, host Spain will take on Bahrain, Finland, Poland, Lebanon, and Angola in the city of Valencia; Slovenia, Croatia, host Greece, Dominican Republic, New Zealand and Egypt play in Piraeus while the San Juan qualifier will have host Puerto Rico, Cote d'Ivoire, Mexico, Brunei, Italy and Lithuania.
The four OQT topnotchers will join qualifiers from the World Cup, namely Germany and Serbia from Europe, Canada and US from Americas, Australia for Oceania, Japan for Asia and South Sudan for Africa. France has an automatic berth as host.
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