LESS than 24 hours after being booted out of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, Gilas Pilipinas is taking the first available flight back home.
The national team headed by coach Tab Baldwin goes back home from Serbia and will depart for Manila early Saturday morning (Manila time) on Friday night via Turkish Airlines.
Gilas Pilipinas return flight
From Belgrade, the Filipinos are again taking a connecting flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where they will have a close to three hour stopover before going home.
The team’s expected to arrive here by around 7 p.m. of Saturday.
But before going back to the waiting arms of their families and loved ones, the entire members of the team will undergo quarantine at a hotel nearby the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Gilas both lost its two-game schedule in the OQT against no. 5 Serbia and no. 19th Dominican Republic.
But the team did show a lot of promise and potential when it gave the Serbs a big scare coming home before yielding an 83-76 game.
Against the Dominicana, the Filipinos led at the half, 41-39, but imploded beginning the third quarter and fell, 94-67.
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