IN his first visit to Manila, coach Mike Breymade sure to get a look at the Philippine men’s basketball team in the Fiba Basketball World Cup.
And while Gilas Pilipinas fell short in its bid, the Atlanta Hawks deputy sees some positives.
Brey believes the Philippines has the tools to compete and be at par with the world’s basketball powers, it’s just a matter of putting together the right pieces.
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“I think there’s a lot of pieces on that team. They just have to put them together,” said the recent Manila visitor
Professing his love for the Philippine team after being impressed with Filipino basketball, Brey cited his own personal experiences about winning and losing.
“I’ve had teams when I was a college coach at Notre Dame that the pieces fits real good, and sometimes the pieces did not fit really good,” he said of the Fighting Irish, whom he coached from 2000 to 2023 and compiled a record of 483-280 which ranks as the best in the history of the school.

Despite Chot Reyes stepping down as head coach, and half of the team that saw action in the World Cup having gone back overseas, Brey still feels good about Gilas, which he expects to play much better in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
“I have a feeling in the Asian Games in a couple of weeks, they’re gonna play really well,” he said of the Philippine national squad.
“I look at their future. I think there’s a lot there.”
Brey, one of the assistant coaches to Quin Snyder including former PBA import Antonio Lang, went to Manila to watch and scout in the World Cup, where he also monitored two of Atlanta’s players in Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovich and Angola’s Bruno Fernando.
Bogdanovich and the Serbians reached the final, but lost to eventual champion Germany, while Fernando and Angola was relegated to the classification phase and finished at no. 26.
Incidentally, Angola’s lone win in five games came at the expense of Gilas, 80-70, during the first round of the group phase in a loss considered the most dispiriting suffered by the host country.
Brey, a three-time Big East Coach of the Year, knows the feeling.
“I know they had a tough stretch here. And there’s a lot of pressure at them to win at home,” said the one-time assistant of Mike Krzyzweski at Duke and former head coach of Delaware.
Still, his admiration of Gilas remains despite limping home at 24th place by the end of the tournament.
“I love the team,” said Brey.
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