Friday, November 3, 2017

GILAS PILIPINAS : INITIAL POOL FOR THE 2019 WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS REVEALED BY COACH CHOT

A day after the confusing events regarding the PBA commissioner, oue team, the Gilas Pilipinas finally started its preparation in the upcoming Asian qualifier for the 2019 FIBA Wotld Cup in China.

As committed by the governors of the PBA teams, they will be supportive of the national team and will be releasing their players to the pool. For this practice 13 players attended from various PBA team.

Leading the group are 4 time PBA Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo of San Miguel Beermen and 2-time best point guard in Asia Jayson Castro of Talk N Text Katropa. Also present are Gabe Norwood and Raymond Almazan of Rain or Shine, Alein Maliksi and Mac Belo of Blackwater Elite, Troy Rosario and RR Pogoy of TNT Katropa, Matthew Wright of Phoenix Fuelmasters, Calvin Abueva and Carl Bryan Cruz of Alaska Aces and Japhet Aguilar of Barangay Ginebra. Star Hotshot's Jio Jalalon also attended but did not join the drills.

Coach Chot Reyes also tweeted the list of players who attended tonight plus some more players that will be joining:


Apparently, KR is Kiefer Ravena who I think is currently on vacation (he posted a picture of sunset and palm trees in his Twitter account) and TR is Terence Romeo who is in the Middle East until November 4 for a brand he is endorsing. AB is I think Andray Blatche who is surprisingly playing after news that he is injured.

Counting all the players mentioned, there just 16 players, which is still 8 short of the required 24 man pool. As reported, deadline to submit the 24 man line up will be on Tuesdy, November 7.

This is such a good development since at least now, we have an initial line up since we have not seen names before today. This is a good sign that despite what is happening on our professional league, the national team pool is still rich in talent. Despite the other teams having prepared earlier than our team, I am still optimistic that we will be able to contend despite only having 3 weeks of preparation. This line up is almost the same guys who trained for the FIBA Asia Cup and the SEA Games and they already know the system.

Gilas Pilipinas will start their campaign thru a game against Japan on November 24 in Tokyo and will go back home and host Chinese Taipei in Araneta Coliseum on November 27.

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