Another "let down", Gilas Fails to Get 3rd place, falls to Qatar

As the final horn sounded and the scoreboard showed a 79-63, loss by the Gilas 2.0 in the hands of a towering Qatari team, I was a bit frustrated how the team performed today since winning the Jones Cup, a few days back. 

Yes, Qatar is a huge team, there's no doubt to that, they even have a NBA player playing for their team that makes them very formidable. What stings though is the fact that we are making too many excuses when we lose in the game of Basketball, where I think we should dominate in Asia! I did not like the way coach Chot was saying in an article in the Philippine Star... 

"We’re the smallest team in the tournament and then we can’t make our outside shots. In the end, that’s our problem,” said Gilas coach Chot Reyes.

“We did well on defense, limiting them below 80 points. But then we have to make out shots. We had open looks but couldn’t make it."

I have nothing against our current team..they are talented and have potential. Its just that we keep on changing our system, that we lose our consistency!

We were limited to 26 points in the First Half!! 8 points in the First Quarter! that's just terrible basketball for a country who embrace basketball like a religion! Look at the top 3 teams...Iran, Japan, Qatar..they don't love basketball like we do?

This continue to proves that even though we are a Basketball country we cannot dominate Asian basketball, let me sum this up in two important points. 

1. we don't have a consistent basketball grassroots program and 

2. we are too reliant in the PBA for talented players. 

Let's stop all the politics and bickering in basketball and lets start to move forward...Our People deserve the best team out there. They have been waiting for too long.

Some Highlights of the Game: