THERE'S nothing quite like home.
And what made this return more special for San-En NeoPhoenix guard Thirdy Ravena is the crowd at Smart Araneta Coliseum on Friday as he got showered with the loudest cheers as he played for Gilas Pilipinas.
"Just playing for this crowd in Araneta in your home court, it feels amazing especially playing for the country," he said with a big smile on his face.
Ravena gave the fans a reason to keep on clapping, delighting them with his play in the Philippines' 88-64 victory against India where he dropped 15 points and two assists in the 2023 Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers.
He drained three three-pointers in the second quarter to give Gilas a slight bump and slowly but surely pull away.
"It's been a while since I represented the country on a Fiba event, so I'm very excited to be back," he said. "I guess the opportunity just came. My teammates were setting me up real well. I just took those opportunities and I'm just lucky that my shots were falling in. I'm just happy that it was a team win and we wre able to pull it off against India."
Thirdy Ravena gears up for battle against New Zealand.
Curiously, this was the first time that Ravena played with the Gilas seniors team in front of the home crowd.
But as delightful as the feeling of this triumph is, the 6-foot-3 guard is well aware that the job isn't over with New Zealand up next on the Philippines' slate on Sunday.
"We're definitely learning from our mistakes. Although we won this game, I feel we still committed turnovers that we could have avoided," lamenting on the 17 turnovers that the home side committed, largely due to too much unselfishness and at times, its consistent desire to put the game out of reach.
Doing so in the next game against the Tall Blacks, Ravena understands, would be nothing short of catastrophic for Gilas.
"We'll make sure everything is well taken care off for the next game against New Zealand," he said. "It's gonna be a dogfight. They're very tough team, physical and skill-wise very good as well. So we still have a lot to work on in a very short span."
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