DRAW IS GILAS’ FIRST STEP TO SPANISH JAUNT – Barrios
Officials of Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas considers the FIBA Asia draw Thursday as Gilas Pilipinas’ first step in a journey to a possible rendezvous with the world’s best in Spain next year.
“Eto ang pinagkagastahan natin – ang advantage sa draw. Ito ang first step para marating natin ang world championship,” said former PBA commissioner and now SBP executive director Sonny Barrios.
“Hosting ng qualifier for the world championship ang pinili natin at hindi qualifier for the Olympics since three slots are at stake for Asia here. It’s more doable, and we really believe it’s achievable,” Barrios also said.
Coach Chot Reyes and his team get to know the path they’re treading in the tournament proper during the draw set at 1:30 p.m. at the Centennial Hall of the Manila Hotel.
“We have a big luxury in this exercise as host. That’s the reason why we exerted much effort to bring the event to our country,” said Barrios.
“The whole world or all the other 15 teams will go through random draw while we pick where we want to belong,” said Barrios.
FIBA Asia uses a “pure” draw system to divide the 16 teams into four groups for the preliminary round of the 27th FIBA Asia Championship slated Aug. 1-11 at the MOA Arena in Pasay and Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.
After each team plays its groupmates once in the preliminaries, the last placer is struck out, leaving 12 survivors who will be reclassified into two groups of six.
Teams will carry over their win-loss records into the second round, except for their records against the eliminated teams, and play only contenders not from their original groups. The top four from each group then move on to play in the eight-team crossover knockout quarterfinals.
Gilas Pilipinas chooses its group after 12 teams have been randomly drawn to their respective groups.
Of course, the host should choose the group that would give it the easiest path to the knockout round of the Asian joust serving as the continental eliminator for the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain.
“There’s also a science involved here. We have to make the intelligent choice to make the knockout stage,” said Barrios.
“The quarterfinal round is the critical part. If you win your quarterfinal match, you have two chances to qualify to the Spain world meet. The first is to win your semifinal match. The second is, if you lose your semis, you win the fight for third place,” Barrios pointed out.
FIBA Asia secretary general Hagop Khajirian and Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Manny V. Pangilinan will preside over the proceedings.
Aside from the host, the other teams involved in the draw are China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea from East Asia, Kazakhstan from Central Asia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar from Gulf, and Iran, Jordan and Lebanon from West Asia, India from South Asia and two teams coming from Southeast Asia.
The two qualifiers from the Southeast Asian sub-zone will be known at the end of the 10th SEABA Championship set in Medan, Indonesia on June 20-23. (SB)
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