By REYNALD MAGALLON
Gilas Pilipinas interim head coach Tim Cone announced that the men’s and women’s basketball teams are set to have a joint practice on Thursday, Sept. 14 at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.
Cone made the announcement through his X account (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, Sept. 12 while noting that the 4 p.m. training session will also be open for fans to come and see.
“Gilas Men’s Team will have a joint practice with Gilas Women’s Team at Philsports on Thursday, Sept 14. We will share the court and have interactions between both teams. The public is free to come and observe. The gates will open at 4 pm. NO tickets necessary!,” tweeted Cone.
In a separate interview, Cone said the move was to rally both teams ahead of the Asian games. A private dinner between the two squads is also being arranged after the joint practice session.
“We’re hoping to have a co practice with the women’s Gilas team and then we’ll have a little private event between us and the women’s team, a little dinner or something,” shared Cone after the national team’s first practice on Monday, Sept. 11.
“We want them to feel that we are all part of this going into the Asian games,” he added.
Just like the men’s team, the women’s squad is up for a tough task in the Asian games as it is expected to go up against world powers China, Japan and Korea in the quadrennial meet.
The Chinese are ranked No.2 in the world while the Japanese and the Koreans are No. 9 and 12 respectively.
The ranked 42 women’s team though won’t be facing these big time teams until the knockout stage except Japan which they are grouped with along with Kazakhstan and Hong Kong.
The Filipinas, which will be bannered by mainstays Jack Animam, Janina Pontejos and Afril Bernardino along with Filipina-American Mai Loni Henson, take on Kazakhstan first on Sept. 27 and Hong Kong on the 29th before wrapping up their preliminary schedule against Japan on Oct. 1.
The Gilas Women’s team, under head coach Pat Aquino, is also looking to follow up its stellar performance in the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup where it advanced to the knockout stage for the first time since getting the promotion to the Division A in 2015.
