Eliminated

After being heralded as a team to watch out for after a surprising performance that wasn’t quite enough to get it past the elimination round of the Basketball World Cup in Seville, Team Gilas Pilipinas didn’t even make it past the elimination round of the Asian Games, losing to teams that are lightweights compared to the giants we faced and almost toppled in Spain.

This performance is ironic because this is essentially the same team that qualified for the FIBA World Cup, a feat that was last achieved in the 70’s and the same team that had a decent shot at advancing into the second round of that world cup. Sure, we lost Andray Blatche due to a technicality, but the team without our naturalized big man should have been able to handle the challenge presented by the Asian Games basketball squads.

And we did dominate most of the first three quarters of most of our games in Incheon, only to unravel and lose day after disappointing day until we were eliminated from contention. To add insult to injury, our boys had to  score an own goal in the game against Kazakhstan in an attempt to force overtime after losing the minimum 11-point lead required to mercifully advance. Scoring for the opposing team to force overtime would have given Gilas more time and a chance to rebuild the lead back to 11 in extra time and that was how low our boys had to stoop in trying to save the hopes of a country that had expected them to be strong contenders for a medal in that particular competition.

How the mighty have fallen: from giant slayers to desperation own-goal-scorers within a matter of weeks.

So what went wrong? Did the “success” in Seville get into their heads? Was that the high water mark of Philippine Basketball and is everything going downhill from there? Or is there a problem within the team that had been fermenting some time now and something finally gave and broke in Incheon?

Whatever went wrong, a lot of the blame is being heaped upon Coach Chot Reyes.  That is one of the burdens a head coach must carry and his public comments against a proven player and the multiple monumental collapses Team Gilas Pilipinas was involved in can only point the spotlight towards the coaching staff.

The pundits who were saying that Gilas could have advanced further into the FIBA World Cup with better coaching are now being justified by the debacle that is the Asian Games elimination. Imagine this: if we lose to China, we will be in 6th place and that would be Philippine Basketball’s worst performance since joining the Asian Games in 1951. Just when the world had taken notice of us, our team somehow manages to self-destruct and bring us back to irrelevance in no time. Someone has to take responsibility and the popular consensus is that if heads must roll, it should be the coach’s head that must roll first. After all, the saying goes that the players win games and the coaches lose games, and after too many losses and heartbreaks, something’s definitely got to give.

Isn’t it sad that we are the kind of people who can afford to be happy even when our team fails miserably? Have our standards for excellence fallen that low? What does “Laban” and  “Puso” mean if we can’t win anything anyway and does it give our underperforming national teams an excuse every time they lose? I know that it is good to celebrate the sacrifice and the effort put in by our athletes but why can’t we level up and celebrate wins and medals as well?

Speaking of Puso, it’s frustrating to see how from being a battle cry in Seville, it has become a joke in Incheon. They say puso now means the heart attack that Gilas will give when they collapse and give up their lead and the heartbreak we get when they finally lose a game that they should have and could have won. Laban and Puso have tried and failed so it must be time to take on another tack and start putting more emphasis on the utak aspect of Team Gilas Pilipinas.

Those are things the benefactor of the Philippine basketball program Manny V. Pangilinan will have to consider during the trip back home. He will have to call the shots and make the decisions that are needed to be made that will be the best interest of the team. Let’s hope he makes the right choices because a lot of Filipino pride is always at stake when basketball in involved.*

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