By REYNALD MAGALLON
The Gilas Pilipinas boys team couldn’t hold on to an opening quarter lead and yielded to Puerto Rico, 98-53 to come out winless in the group stage of the FIBA U17 World Cup at the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul, Turkey on Tuesday, July 2.
A five-minute scoring drought in the second frame spelled doom for the Filipinos, wasting a rare eight point lead, and allowed the Puerto Ricans to pull away and hand Gilas its third straight blowout loss in as many games.
Never led in the lopsided losses to Spain and Lithuania, the Filipinos actually got a taste of the advantage and were actually looking good after taking a 24-16 lead at the end of the first 10 minutes of the game.
It was also the first time that the Filipinos scored more than 20 points in a quarter after not reaching the mark in any of the frames in its first two games.
Gilas, however, faltered immediately in the next two quarters as they struggled to solve the full court pressure from Puerto Rico which then held the Filipinos to just six points in the second quarter and four points in the third.
Finishing dead last in the Group A standings, Gilas is now set to face world No.1 USA, which topped Group B with a perfect 3-0 record, in the crossover Round of 16.
Joaquin Ludovice and Kurt Nathan Velasquez who led the strong start for Gilas finished with 13 and 10 points respectively.
Jordan Dill, on the other hand, spearheaded his team with 13 points while Vince Stuart had a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds for the Puerto Ricans who got their bearings going after a slow start
The Puerto Ricans scored the first 16 points in the second quarter before a triple from Bonn Ervin Daja with 4:51 mark ended the drought.
That however proved too late for Gilas as Puerto Rico ended uo exploding for 32 in that quarter before following it up with another 30-point explosion in the third to rip the game wide apart.
