KAI SOTTO made the final 12 of the Philippine men’s team which will take on South Korea at the start of Group A action in the third and final window of the International Basketball Federation (Fiba) Asia Qualifiers on Wednesday at the Angeles City Foundation Gym in Pampanga.
Sotto will be a suspect though as the 7-foot-4 center hoping to become the first home-grown Filipino to play in the National Basketball Association could only practice one day with the team following a 14-day home quarantine.
But for Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas executive director Renauld “Sonny” Barrios, this batch of Gilas Pilipinas has the arsenal to beat the Koreans.
“We are really hopeful that we will perform admirably. We just can’t simply predict the outcome because anything can still happen in the game, but we’re still upbeat of the team despite our team being made up of young players,” Barrios told BusinessMirror on Tuesday.
“We will try to win all three games in our backyard and make our country proud,” Barrios added.
The match against the Koreans, who are reinforced by naturalized player Ricardo Ratliffe, a many-time Philippine Basketball Association import, is set 6 p.m. after the 2:30 p.m. match between China and Japan.
Joining the 19-yeart-old Sotto in head coach Tab Baldwin’s final 12 are team captain Isaac Go, Mike Nieto, Carl Tamayo, William Navarro, Jaydee Tungcab, Dwight Ramos, Justine Baltazar, Javi Gomez de Liaño, SJ Belangel, RJ Abarrientos and naturalized player Ange Kouame.
Sitting out Wednesday’s game against South Korea were big man Geo Chiu, Jordan Heading and Lebron Lopez.
Baldwin and his staff shunned media interviews to focus on the qualifiers, but manage to send a brief message.
“We’ve been in practice and we are now in the coaches’ meeting,” Baldwin said.
The Philippines beat Indonesia, 100-75, and Thailand twice, 93-61 and 93-69, in the first window in February 2020 to go unbeaten. The Koreans, who are undefeated in two games, declined to play in the second window because of fear of Covid-19 infection.
South Korea, along with China and Chinese-Taipei, were penalized CHF80,000 and a one-point deduction each in the qualifiers for skipping games.
Also in the Clark bubble are Group B’s China, Japan and Chinese-Taipei.
Chinese-Taipei leads the group with a 1-1 card followed by Japan with 1-0. China and Malaysia, which has no scheduled game in the window, have yet to play a game.
After three windows, the top 2 teams from every group will advance to the Fiba Asia Cup 2021 in Jakarta set from August 17 to 29.
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