GILAS Pilipinas left for Jeddah on Wednesday after more or less three weeks of practice in preparation for the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 back home.
Gilas coach Tim Cone emphasized the importance of practices in their build-up for the Fiba Asia Cup after learning his lesson from the final window of the qualifiers in February, which was disastrous for the national team.
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In that February window, the Nationals had multiple tune-up games in Doha but little time to practice before the away qualifiers, which ended in losses to the New Zealand Tall Blacks and Chinese Taipei.
"AJ [Edu]was awesome (against Macau Black Bears) and that was just being able to have him for two weeks," said Cone on the eve of the team's departure for Jeddah.
"And I think the last trip that we took, we only had him for two days and then we arrived in Doha and played games, and then went to Taiwan, had once practice, and then we went to New Zealand, had one practice. So in effect, we only had four practices the whole last trip we had.”
But even with the three weeks of practices under Gilas' belt, Cone rued the team wasn't able to do so with full roster since the likes of June Mar Fajardo, Cjay Perez, and Calvin Oftana were still playing in the PBA Philippine Cup Finals.
It even came a point that a 16-year old nephew of Cone’s daughter visiting from the US had to join Gilas practices to make up the numbers. That person was caught in a video posted onthe Ginebra ball boys’ Facebook page, drawing curiosity from fans.
Gilas just had one tuneup back home in a sendoff game against the Macau Black Bears, which it won, 103-98, on Monday. The nationals will also have just one more tuneup in Jeddah against Jordan on August 2.
The rest of the time will be spent on practice, practice, and more practice.
“In a way (I’m happy) because we were able to get a couple of weeks. But we wanted a complete team. So that made it difficult. But we had a good core. Justin (Brownlee), AJ (Edu), it was really important for AJ to be here," said Cone.
“So getting the practice time was crucial. But like I said, I’d like some practice time with June Mar (and company),” Cone added.
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