GILAS Pilipinas will be without Christian Standhardinger and Japeth Aguilar in the February window of the 2021 Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers, but Isaac Go is confident the team's braintrust will find a way to compensate.
"We don't know what coach Mark (Dickel) and coach Tab (Baldwin) are gonna do, but knowing those basketball minds, they'll make it work and find a way," he said.
Standhardinger is recovering from a knee injury while Aguilar excused himself as he's currently overseas for his long-delayed honeymoon, leaving Gilas without its two best big men for games against Thailand and Indonesia.
Go himself acknowledged the hole in the middle left by the star pair.
"We're missing two great players. Both have served the national team for a long time and have been successful in doing so," said the 6-foot-8 center.
But the rest of the pool is ready to pick up the slack, especially for Go who gets to don the national tri-colors for he first time since his Philippine youth team days.
"It's a major loss that we lost those two, but if given the opportunity, I'll just take advantage of it," he said. "I've missed it ever since. I played for the national team during the youth days and there's nothing like representing your country. I hope I make it, but if not, I fully trust their decision."
Go is joined by Justine Baltazar and pros Marc Pingris, Troy Rosario, Poy Erram, and Mac Belo as the remaining frontliners for Gilas. That's still a formidable group, one which the former PBA D-League MVP is excited to work with for the next two weeks.
"It's a good group of guys. The Philippines does not lack in skilled players. There are players who I only played against or only heard about, so it's gonna be fun playing with them. It's gonna be interesting," he said.
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