Checking on Gilas

We are officially just four months away until we welcome the men's national basketball teams of France, New Zealand, Senegal, Canada and Turkey for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament set to open on the 5th of July.

Which means, if our very own Gilas is even entertaining thoughts of salvaging at least a victory, then the practices need to be increased; and attendance, a must. Unfortunately for head coach Tab Baldwin, that is not the case.

So here is where we are right now:

Paul Lee is still out nursing whatever. Ian Sangalang is most likely going to be taken out of the pool owing to his subpar PBA season play and non-attendance of practices. Jayson Castro's old achilles injury is acting up again. And the Gilas pool, the original one asked for by Coach Tab, have yet to all suit up together for a single, full-on contact practice.

Yikes.


To the rescue are college standouts Kiefer Ravena, Kevin Ferrer, Mac Belo, RR Pogoy and now Russel Escoto. We are pretty sure that more amateur guys (probably out of the FEU system since coach Nash Racela and assistant Joshua Reyes are pretty involved in all things Gilas) are going to participate in the coming weeks, if only to ensure that whoever is left from the PBA pool can actually have/ enjoy a real basketball practice and not just some non-contact drills.

It has become so bad, that Coach Tab is doing the anti-Chot, not resulting in media blackmail and what not and just being thankful for the players that he has at his disposal. The way things are going-- whoever is healthy and available, will most likely get to play come FIBA time.

Raymond Almazan was on Coach Tab's late wishlist, but his mother team Rain or Shine (which already has three guys on loan- Paul Lee, Jeff Chan and Gabe Norwood) put its foot down and said that enough's enough for the time being as they try to salvage their own PBA season.

On one side you could say that RoS is being greedy here, on another, why can't other PBA teams step forward and say "hey, we've got guys you might want to consider?"

Here are a few names from other teams who have only 1 or no player on the current Gilas pool who could/should get an invite;

Alaska: Vic Manuel
Star: Mark Barroca
Phoenix: RR Garcia, JC Intal
Mahindra: LA Revilla, Bradwyn Guinto
Blackwater: Mike Cortez
Meralco: Jarred Dillinger

The names above look like a pretty decent bunch. Wanted to add Chris Newsome, but there might be some citizenship concerns there. Chris Lutz and JVee Casio's games declined. Quick.

We can only hope for the best, really.