The Batang Gilas program has been waiting for the 2018 FIBA Asian Championship.
It is the culmination of all the hard work and negotiations that began in the back end of 2015. The end goal was to bring the best and brightest young Filipino prospects from all over the world on board for the continental meet.
And this included the dream frontline of AJ Edu and Kai Sotto.
The stars needed to align to make this possible and for the 18-year-old Edu, he made sure it would happen.
Edu – who was part of the historic 2017 FIBA 3X3 U17 World Cup team – arrived in the Philippine last Sunday. But as he is still a student in the University of Toledo, the 6-foot-10 23 for 2023 Gilas cadet needed to cope with his academics as well.
So he has decided to bring his school work to Manila and, later on, to Thailand.
“I really wanted to be here for this tournament so I asked them if I could do online classes.
“They said I was fine, thankfully. So I’m here doing all my online classes while preparing for the FIBA Asia,” Edu told ESPN5’s Lyn Olavario.
The young Filipino-Nigerian could not miss this tournament. He knows that history has to be made.
The Philippine Boys National Basketball Team last made the U19 World Cup back in 1979. Given that this tournament has four tickets for next year’s World Cup, the program needs everyone to embrace the challenge.
For his part, Edu is already fully on board.
“I really like the challenge.
“It’s not gonna be easy but that’s the case in life all the time so we’re just gonna work, take every session day by day, and take every game game by game and we’ll see what happens,” the young buck expressed.
And Edu did not look far to find his motivation for this tournament.
“My mom’s very excited. This is something that she knew was part of the plan all the time and now that it’s finally happening, it’s just really great and she’s really happy.”
