By REYNALD MAGALLON
A world No. 2 team in Spain was just too much for the lower ranked Gilas Pilipinas boys team to overcome, absorbing a thorough 96-34 beating in the 2024 FIBA U17 World Cup at the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul, Turkey late Sunday, June 30 (Manila time).
The size and skill disparity was very much evident right at the onset of the game as the Spanish jumped into a hot 16-0 start and never looked back since then to send the Filipinos to a second straight blowout defeat in as many games.
Proving why they finished as the second best team in the world in the last edition, multiple players scored in double figures for Spain led by the 15 points of Maximo Garcia-Plata and the 14 of Guillermo del Pino.
Bonn Ervin Daja was Gilas’ best scorer and the only one in double figures with 12 points while Wacky Ludovice, who scored Gilas’ first and only pair of points in the opening frame against Spain’s 30, finished with seven.
Gilas did show some semblance of improvement after scoring 11 points both in the second and the third quarters but those hardly put a threat to Spain which was simply scoring at will on the other end.
The performance was no better as compared to Gilas’ 59-point loss to Lithuania, 107-48 in its first game.
Gilas is set to take a day break to get back into the drawing board before trying to pick up its first win again against Puerto Rico, which is ranked 15th best in the world, on Tuesday, July 2.
