GILAS Pilipinas will get its first acid test tomorrow when it battles Australia in the Fiba qualifiers in Sydney.
Unbeaten in its first two games against Taiwan and Japan, Gilas is the underdog for the first time in its quest to capture one of two slots in the Fiba Worlds.
The cards are heavily stacked against us.
For one, the Aussies have become world basketball powers due to their consistent high-placed showing on the world stage.
For another, because we play on foreign land tomorrow, crowd hostility is a given.
The only advantage that we can possibly exploit to the hilt is this: Australia’s best are playing in the National Basketball Associatio. The NBA disallows its foreign players to play for their country when the NBA season is on.
But still, Australia has a deep bench, its supply of towering players almost unfathomable.
We are good in virtually all departments of the game, except in one area: ceiling.
And, as we all know, ceiling is the cornerstone of the game. Thus, the basketball saying, “Height is might.”
We don’t have a Philippine Basketball Association policy anymore restricting PBA players from representing our country in overseas tournaments.
That’s a big plus that produced dividends when our PBA player-spiked national team made a dramatic return to the Fiba Worlds, when Gilas got to Spain in 2013 in a historic reprise of our world championship stint in 1978.
I believe we can do it again, given that gentle giant June Mar Fajardo continues to improve and the high-leaping Japeth Aguilar pursues his passion to excel internationally.
What worries me most is Andray Blatche’s condition. Is our naturalized, 7-foot-1 center 100-percent healthy against the Aussies?
Anyway, after Australia, we next battle Japan, with the game set in Manila on Sunday (February 25).
I believe we can handle Japan. Again. However, better to beat Australia first. It’d be tough, of course. But, once achieved, the journey is half done.
THAT’S IT Rhythm & Blues is one cool place to unwind after a week of hard work. At Mother Ignacia near Scout Borromeo in Quezon City (not far from Quezon Avenue), the joint boasts of great music by legends, including Richard Merk and Tony Aguilar. Merk is from the original Sangkatutak Band and who is arguably still the country’s King of Jazz. His quaint version of Al Jareau’s “Spain” remains unmatched to this day. And to think that Merk has just survived a scary car crash that saw him bounce back from an exceedingly painful hospital detention for quite some time. Welcome back, and right on, Richard!…To Dewey regulars in the 1960s, Tony Aguilar (“McArthur’s Park,” “What a Beautiful World” and “Me and Mrs. Jones”) was then the pillar/lead vocalist of the fabled Howlers, a byword in the music world back then. “Tony has the longest musical career I’ve ever seen,” Merk says. “I was still in my teens when I started adoring Tony and The Howlers.” The mustachioed Tony, Marvin Velayo’s esteemed bilas who is seventy-ish now but still superbly strong and sexily vibrant, now has his Daddy Cool band, whose music cools every nook and cranny of Rhythm & Blues every Saturday. But the best thing at the R&B, robustly backstopped by billiards biggie Perry Mariano, is it encourages habitués to sing. Tony’s Daddy Cool is always more than able and willing to accompany even the shy guys that only croon when in the showers. Gleng!