PHL basketball: Salvation should start Sept. 4

NBA player Nemanja Bjelica (shooting over Filipino Gabe Norwood) towed Serbia to a 126-67 domination of the Philippines last Sept. 1 in Foshan, China. That loss provided humbling lessons to the Philippine basketball program (photo by FIBA).

A Southeast Asian nation’s basketball program went into an abyss no thanks to two disciplined European teams at the ongoing FIBA World Cup in China. While the Philippines hasn’t beaten a European team for 59 years running, seeking for salvation can begin today.

There’s a discrepancy in global basketball, skewed to favor Europe, the Americas and Oceania. African and Asian nations have yet to get to higher levels in the modern FIBA era, though China, Iran, Lebanon and the Philippines had given higher-ranked teams scares in the last two decades of international basketball.

For now, the Philippines seeks to start a medium-to-long-term form of redemption through its three remaining games at the FIBA World Cup. Tonight in Foshan, the Filipino players will square off with Africa’s winningest nation Angola.

Angola has been on a slump after winning the 2013 FIBA Africa Championships. But Angola had won a total of 11 continental titles: four straight from 1989 to 1995, six straight from 1999 to 2009, and the 2013 title.

The two countries squared off in a 2014 tune up, held at a gym in France with few but howling Filipino fans. The Angolans relied on a second quarter blitz to drub the Filipinos, 83-74.

Whatever the result of the game tonight against Angola, the Philippines will be relegated to the classification phase and tussle with the two lowest-seeded teams in Group C: Asian nemesis Iran and either 2015 FIBA Africa champions Tunisia or Puerto Rico.

The short-term goal of the Philippines is to win those three games so that the country is placed in the higher end of the 16 other remaining teams in the classification round. If that happens, the Philippines may be given a slot in one of four Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in June next year.

Angola and the Philippines were shellacked by both Italy and Serbia in previous matches in Group D.

Roads

The road to global basketball redemption for the Philippines began with the country’s silver medal feat at the 2013 FIBA Asian Championships. Qualifying for the World Cup (or the former FIBA World Championships) for the first time in 38 years, the Philippines played in tune-up games against France, Australia, Ukraine, Egypt, Angola and the Dominican Republic. The country only won against Egypt, 74-65.

But the Filipinos surprised an NBA players-loaded French squad during a close game, 68-75.

The tune-ups led the Filipinos to a memorable 2014 World Cup experience in Spain: A near upset over Croatia in overtime. A 12-point loss to Greece. The suffering the Filipinos dealt over Argentina in a four-point loss. A four-point heartbreaker over Puerto Rico. And finally, the overtime win over Senegal, the Philippines’ first at showcase event since 1978.

The momentum was carried on to the 2015 FIBA Asia Championships in a second-straight silver medal finish behind titlists China.

The Philippines then hosted one of four OQTs in 2016. Prior to the Manila OQT, the Philippines lost tune-up games versus Italy, Iran (twice) and Turkey (also twice). The only tune-up win was against a B-team from China.

At the actual Olympic Qualifying Tournament held at the Mall of Asia Arena, the Filipinos gave France another scare (84-93), then it waned over New Zealand (80-89).

Skids

Nevertheless, those experiences of playing against higher-ranked countries buoyed the hope that Filipinos will soon rise globally. Periodic FIBA world rankings of countries saw the Philippines rise some notches higher, even if there’s still no continental championship for the country for over three decades.

A downturn for the country began at the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup, which now merged with Oceania’s Australia and New Zealand. Despite an opening-day upset over China (without the latter’s two towering NBA centers in Yi Jianlian and Zhou Qi), the Philippines sputtered in succeeding games and eventually placed seventh.

That same year, in November, FIBA piloted the new competition system with six windows of home-and-away qualifying games. The Philippines went off to a good start in the first three windows, until the brawl with Australia came and two home losses against Kazakhstan and a depleted Iranian team that marked a horrendous 2018.

Just in the nick of time, two big wins over Qatar and Kazakhstan secured for the country the seventh and final Asian spot for this ongoing FIBA World Cup. Thus far though, hard lessons were learned in the Philippines’ mile-high losses to Italy and World Cup favorites Serbia recently. What was worrisome was the Filipino players’ lack of spiritedness when the Italian and Serbian leads were getting wider.

Hopes

The Philippine preparation for this World Cup may have been sub-optimal given the limited time of practices, the challenges the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) faced in adjusting to FIBA’s new competition system, and the unavailability of previous FIBA tournament veterans to the current squad.

The losses to Italy and Serbia though may be “tune-ups” for the Philippines to hopefully fare better in its last three remaining games against fellow low-tier teams.

But the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas and the PBA may have to humbly look forward to regain the “Gilas way” of basketball. This is after Serbian coach Sasha Djordjevic gave an honest assessment of the Philippines in a post-game presser.

“I think you (Filipinos) showed some talent and quickness, but obviously you are missing quality,” Djordjevic said in answer to a Filipino reporter’s question.

“These two games (losses to Italy and Serbia) are a result of that: two tough European basketball teams who know how to play quality basketball. Maybe (the losses are) something to think about in the future.”

National coach Joseller “Yeng” Guiao admitted that hard lessons were learned. “We’ve been playing Asian-level basketball and competing there better. The world level is …  several notches different. We need certain types of players (and) the exposure to the (world) level of play.”

“These are the things we need to work on, and it’s always long-term. There is no short-term solution. We got here the last time (2014).”

Guiao and his troops will try to jumpstart the Philippines’ long-term redemption tonight until Sept. 8, to hopefully continue in next year’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Filipino fans hope this World Cup, no matter how humiliating, is a new cinematic phase for Philippine basketball’s dreams of a memorable 2023 World Cup campaign in Manila —and beyond.

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About Jeremaiah Opiniano