Gilas Pilipinas guard Dwight Ramos is not too worried about his performance in the recently-concluded fifth window of the FIBA World Cup 2023 Asian Qualifiers.
Ramos had per-game counts of 14.8 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 2.5 assists for Gilas in the previous window but saw his number go down by a bit when the team picked up a pair of wins against Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The versatile 6-foot-4 guard who plays for Hokkaido was limited to just five points on 2-of-11 shooting along with four rebounds, three assists, and six turnovers in the 74-66 win over Jordan in Amman last Friday.
He turned in a better performance in the 76-63 rout of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah last Monday where he put up a 13-point, four-assist, and three-rebound performance.
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“No, I’m not too worried. I’ll go back to Japan, keep working, keep trying to get better,” said Ramos, who was tasked to defend Dar Tucker in Gilas’ first assignment.
The Cal Poly Pomona product acknowledged that Gilas still needs to work on a lot of things but said that the victories against Jordan and KSA were ‘two good team wins’ based on the balanced offensive showing that Gilas displayed in the past two games.
“I think that was two good team wins. You could tell by just how balanced the scoring was. Obviously, there’s still stuff we need to work on, but that comes with time and more practice. So we’re on the way up,” said Ramos, who was watching the PVL Reinforced Conference tilt pitting F2 Logistics and Akari on Wednesday.
Ramos and the Nationals will welcome Lebanon and Jordan, respectively, at the Philippine Arena in the sixth window and the 24-year-old Filipino-American cager is very confident that Gilas can replicate their feat come February knowing that Filipino fans will be there to support them.
“Hopefully next window… I mean, we’re just trying to get two more wins against Lebanon and Jordan. Going to be two tough games at home,” said Ramos.
“Lebanon’s crowd was huge when we went there. So hopefully when they come here, we can show ’em, our crowd is even better.”
