MANILA, Philippines — Following its seventh place finish in the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 in Jeddah, Gilas coach Tim Cone admitted they took a different approach in their preparation against Guam in the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers’ opening window.
Cone explained the past week of training has been marked by two-a-day practices that culminated in a scrimmage over the weekend at the Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna.
“We’ve been killing these guys. We’ve been practicing everyday since we (got) together,” Cone told media men during the Gilas sendoff held last Monday.
“We did two-a-day on Friday, two-a-day on Saturday and two-a-day on Sunday, and we did a hard, hard scrimmage, fullagame type of scrimmage which is hard because each team only had seven players,” he added.
Cone explained that he would have done another team practice before leaving for Guam by late Tuesday, but his concern is the players might no longer have the legs come game time against Guam.
“It will be hard to find a balance so we’ll see them in the flight at around midnight. We’ll arrive in the morning and we’ll practice in Guam,” he added.
Cone explained as well that Gilas players are expected to run more up and down the floor, which includes veteran big men like June Mar Fajardo and Japeth Aguilar, who are now in their mid or late 30s.
“We took a little different approach this time. We really push much harder than we normally have done in the previous windows,” said the Gilas mentor, who led the Philippine team to the 2023 Asian Games men’s cage gold in Hangzhou, China.
“Kind of a more aggressive style, so we will play with a more aggressive style. Guys need to be ready to get up and down the floor, especially for the big guys, Japeth and June Mar, those guys have a big heavy toll on them.” Cone however, is happy to see everyone give their all in practice, while not hearing a single complaint.
“No complaints. We just never had a problem with this team, or people showing up (late) in practice, or not going hard, or asking out or finding an excuse, just absolutely none of that,” he stressed.
“With the national team, everybody’ excited for the team, (it’s) like perfect character players.”