The 10th King Abdullah Cup in Jordan should have been Gilas Pilipinas’ final preparation for the much-awaited 2021 FIBA Asia Cup in Indonesia.
Unfortunately, FIBA ultimately decided to postpone the continental cage wars to July next year due to the prevailing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Head coach Tab Baldwin, though, didn’t see any change in the mindset of his youthful cagers heading into the week-long showpiece.
“I didn’t feel that or sense that,” he told Radyo5’s Power and Play. “I don’t think there was any drop-off about how these guys felt about playing in the King Abdullah as opposed to not having that as a warm-up for FIBA Asia.
“I think the fact that we have these young kids, you know… They’re excited about everything that we do, other than another drudgery day of training or a week of training — we’re getting tired of that as we all do.
“But when it comes to competition, they’re excited about every opportunity and they look forward to it,” added the multi-titled mentor.
The Nationals played a total of seven games in Amman. They racked up victories against 2017 Afrobasket gold medalists Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan-B, although that particular match was a non-bearing one.
“To win three games, to beat Tunisia was very good. It was an excellent plan, in fact. To beat Saudi Arabia and to beat Jordan-B, we’ve expected to do that. So nothing special about that,” Baldwin said.
But it suffered four losses — first against Egypt on opening day; then back-to-back defeats to eventual champs Jordan in the eliminations’ last day and in the semis; and finally to the Tunisians in the battle for third.
“Losing to Jordan twice, a little bit disappointing,” offered Baldwin, who handled the Jordanian men’s team a decade ago. At the time, they finished with a silver medal in the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship in Wuhan.
“But, you know, they were the ultimate champions of the tournament, very strong, they played at home. And that’s a good lesson, too, to learn how to play against opposing referees and on the road.
“Of course, we lost to Egypt in the opening game. I think Egypt was the strongest team there,” he added, as the Pharaohs swept their way to the title bout before ultimately bowing to the Falcons.
Baldwin, though, is looking beyond the results of their campaign. All that matters to him is the team’s growth as a whole, which he believes they have achieved after exposure to various styles of basketball.
“I think that we saw a different type of basketball,” the American-Kiwi coach said. “We saw the North African teams which are rugged — big, strong, rugged teams, Tunisia and Egypt. We saw different styles of play. We saw a very polished Jordanian team with an excellent guard lineup that really gave us problems. No question that the learnings were there.
“That’s the whole point of going and doing these things, it’s to learn more about these young players and how they step up at each level against each style of basketball. The important thing is we got more knowledge about our team and about our roster,” he added.
“All in all I was relaxed about our results, but more interested with the performances of our players and as a team collectively.”
