Smart Gilas Pilipinas Won Over Syria 75-52 in the 2nd Round of the 26th FIBA Asia Championship

It was a shacky start for Smart Gilas Philippines in the first half, having trailed Syria by 9 points 23-32 at halftime. Mainly due to the foul trouble of Douthit. Things were different in the second half, as the Philippines put on the pressure as it won 75-52 to end its 2nd round in the 26th FIBA Asia Championship.

With its win the Smart Gilas Pilipinas is 2nd in its bracket, the Philippines will now face Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals.

In a way, it was good that Smart Gilas Pilipinas were not able to show their usual form and true strength against Syria, with the Taiwanese - in full fource in the scouting gallery.

"I deliberately not put in that much Jimmy Alapag and Kelly Williams in the first half as I calculated some things. We missed lot of shots and it was good we're able to turn things around in the second half," said Smart Gilas coach Rajko Toroman.

"And it's now the deciding games. We're looking forward to play Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals. We know it's not going to be easy but we're optimistic," Toroman also said.

The knockout quarterfinals are set on Friday.

Smart Gilas Coach bares his wish list of 10 PBA players

Will this be enough? I ask myself, would adding PBA players disrupt the Gilas chemistry? Well Coach Rajko Toroman think otherwise, as he disclosed his wish list of 10 PBA players to reinforce the national basketball team vying for a ticket to the 2012 London Olympics at the FIBA-Asia Championship in Wuhan, China on September 15-25.

The 10 PBA players are Meralco's Asi Taulava, TNT's Jimmy Alapag, Kelly Williams, Ryan Reyes and Ranidel de Ocampo, SMB's Arwind Santos and Jay Washington, B-MEG's James Yap and Alaska's SonnyThoss and Joe DeVance, of the 10 only five will be picked for the national squad.

RP Gilas team will compete in the 2011 Commissioner's Cup

With the Leave of Absence of the Barako Bull approved, this has now allowed the entry of RP Smart Gilas national team for the second conference 2011 Commissioner's Cup.

This will be part of the Smart Gilas preparation for the 2011 FIBA-Asia championship, a qualifying tournament for the 2012 London Olympics. With their entry, it completes a 10 team league for the import laden Cup, won for the last time by Red Bull in 2005.

Smart Gilas will play by the rules of the professional league and will only have 14 man in its line up. Gilas will be led by naturalization candidate Marcus Douthit.

With the leave of absence, all players of Barako Bull will be put on a dispersal draft to allow them to play for other teams. However, they will return to their mother club if the team sees action in the Governor's Cup.

I dunno if this will be a good thing for the Smart Gilas team, I would prefer them playing some International Games than rather playing in the PBA.

DOES A NON BEARING GAME BENEFIT SMART GILAS?

Does making games by Smart Gilas against PBA team a non bearing game benefit them? The PBA commissioner Sonny Barrios took into account the interest of the country in coming up with a crucial decision concerning the RP-Smart Gilas team’s participation in the KFC-PBA Philippine Cup.

Given two options by the Board, Barrios decided to alter instead the arrangement of the nationals’ participation in the season-opening meet, rendering all their games – past and future – as no-bearing, instead of not allowing big man CJ Giles to see action in the team’s remaining games.

The commissioner bared the new set-up Thursday after hearing complaints from governors over the unpredictable playing minutes of the 6-foot-11 Giles, the observations from a former national coach and the remarks from players alike.

Governors immediately questioned the move by coach Rajko Toroman the following day, wondering why the Serbian mentor benched his intimidating inside force against the Tropang Texters, whose owner, Manny V. Pangilinan, is also the president of the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas, the governing body for amateur basketball that bankrolls the RP Team.

I myself is having second thought of which is beneficial for the Smart Gilas, If they play a non bearing games, will PBA teams take the games seriously? will coaches bench their starters to protect them from being injured? Now if the games were not a non bearing one, PBA teams would take Smart Gilas seriously as what we have witness in their previous games, but the PBA also arrived at a common thought that since games before by Smart Gilas had effect on the win-loss standings of the PBA teams, the level of intensity against the Nationals have been at a level that results in physicality and ruggedness.

What do you think?? does it help Smart Gilas making games a non bearing one?