Coach Yeng Guiao has given his Team Pilipinas a passing grade halfway through its preparation for the fifth window of the FIBA World Cup qualifiers.
Guiao likes what he had seen so far with the national team, both in practice and in the two tune-up games it had played against the visiting Jordan quintet this week.
In particular, the coach lauded the effort the Filipinos showed in coming back from as much as 19 points to get back at Jordan, 82-73, despite the tune-up match—their second against the visiting team—being cut short midway in the final quarter following a shouting incident between Guiao and rival coach Joey Stiebing.
“That’s a tribute to the determination of the guys. It’s a tribute to them not wanting to be embarrassed in a situation like this,” said Guiao of his players, who lost to the Jordanians in their first meeting, 98-92.
“It’s a test of character and I felt this is the kind of character that we need in our national team.”
The national team will still have two more exhibition matches against Lebanon before plunging into action against Kazakhstan on Nov. 30 and Iran on Dec. 3 for the penultimate window of the qualifiers.
Definitely, there are room for improvements for the team, which has been not been utilizing in practice Paul Lee and Ian Sangalang as Magnolia is also preparing for the coming PBA Governors’ Cup finals against Alaska.
“Our execution is still not that good. We have to fine tune our execution on both ends,” said Guiao, also the coach of NLEX Road Warriors.
With the exception of Lee and Sangalang, Guiao has so far gotten the attention of the rest of the 18-man pool, including teen prodigy Kai Sotto and college star Ricci Rivero.
The Barangay Ginebra quartet of Scottie Thompson, LA Tenorio, Japeth Aguilar, and Greg Slaughter already joined the team practices along with June Mar Fajardo, Christian Standhardinger, Arwind Santos, Alex Cabagnot, Marcio Lassiter, Jayson Castro, Troy Rosario, Poy Erram, Stanley Pringle, Beau Belga, Gabe Norwood, and Matthew Wright.
With a good one week left before the country resumes its campaign for a slot in next year’s FIBA World Cup in China, Guiao feels there is just enough time left to whip the team into ‘competitive shape.’
“These (tune-up) games are learning experiences for us. So what we want to do or what we want to achieve is to be able to see where our shortcomings are, where our weaknesses are so we can work on them in practices,” said the national coach.
Heading to the two crucial games against Kazakhstan and Iran, the Philippines is running third in Group F with a 5-3 record behind solo leader Australia (7-1) and Iran (6-3). A close fourth behind the country is Japan with an even 4-4 record.
Group E, meanwhile, is led by New Zealand (7-1), followed by Lebanon and South Korea (both with 6-2 records), and Jordan (5-3).
Only the top three teams in the two groups, along with the best-placed fourth team will represent Asia to the 2019 World Cup in China.
