GILAS PLAYS MACAU BLACK BEARS IN FRIENDLY IN MANILA

MANILA, Philippines — Gilas Pilipinas gets a chance to play one friendly game against the Macau Black Bears in Manila late this July before flying to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.

National coach Tim Cone said plans are underway for the Gilas squad to play the Macau club team either on July 28 or 29 at the Araneta Coliseum where basketball-crazy Filipino fans can watch.

The FIBA Asia Cup will be held in Jeddah from August 5 to 17.

"I'm not sure if it's the 28th or 29th. I think we are trying to get the Araneta Coliseum. That's kind of a send-off for the fans before we leave," Cone said after being interviewed on Saturday in the Power and Play sports program hosted by former PBA commissioner Noli Eala.

The American mentor said they originally had the Guam national squad in mind, whic has San Miguel Beer gunner Jericho Cruz as one of its veteran guards.

"We tried to invite a couple of teams to come here to play us. We had Guam originally coming in but something happened and it turned out that they can only meet in Jeddah," explained the 66-year-old Cone, who piloted the Philippine team to a gold medal finish in the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China in 2023, marking the first men's basketball regional crown since 1962 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

"We weren't able to bring them here. They were going to come here and then go to Jeddah, but they couldn't do it. We moved our attention to a club team and now, looks like we are going to play the Macau Bears." Cone sees Gilas getting the needed push with the Black Bears, a club team that competed in the East Asia Super League and The Asian Tournament.

Cone added that former NBA sensation Jeremy Lin could possibly reinforce the Black Bears.

"They beat the Chinese national team. They got three imports and , one of which might be Jeremy Lin so it could be a very, very interesting friendly," he added.

Gilas is bracketed at Group D with New Zealand, Taiwan and Iraq in the FIBA Asia Cup.

The Tall Blacks and the Taiwanese are no strangers for the Filipinos who played them in the home-and-away qualifiers.

The Filipinos went 0-2 in the third and final window of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers last February after bowing to the Tall Blacks and the Taiwanese in their away games.

Gilas registered a historic win against New Zealand in the second window last November, 92-88, at the Mall of Asia Arena, before sustaining an 87-70 beating in Auckland.

The national side also suffered a 93-84 shock loss to Taiwan last February, a complete contrast to how Gilas blasted the East Asia basketball squad to smithereens, 106-53, a year before that during the first window in Manila.

2025-06-22T00:15:29Z