Jordan Clarkson was visibly downtrodden following Gilas Pilipinas’ tough loss to South Sudan in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 classification phase on Thursday night.
“It’s another tough one,” Clarkson told reporters after the Philippines’ 68-87 defeat against the Bright Stars.
“I feel like I’m coming back and saying the same thing.”
Fresh from a heart-wrenching loss to Italy last Tuesday, Gilas Pilipinas once again suffered a deflating loss in a game where they narrowed a 21-point deficit to just four points before eventually losing momentum in the latter part of the fourth quarter.
“They were making shots. We made an adjustment, which is the reason we started coming back in the game. They made another adjustment and closed out the game,” lamented Clarkson, who concluded with a game-high 24 points, along with four rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
Gilas Pilipinas has now endured their fourth consecutive loss in the tournament – their ninth straight in the global competition since the 2019 edition, during which they finished winless after five games in Foshan, China.
Making matters worse, the defeat at the hands of the 62nd-ranked team in the world meant that the Philippines could no longer hold the title of the highest-ranked Asian squad in the tournament – thus ending their hopes of securing a direct spot in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
Gilas Pilipinas still has a chance to avoid a winless campaign on Saturday, but they will face a tough China squad that is coming off a groundbreaking 83-76 victory over Angola earlier in the day.
“We’ll see. I just got off the floor, so I haven’t been thinking about it much.”
