By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Gilas Pilipinas program director coach Tab Baldwin shared that the current roster training in the bubble at Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna is the youngest team they assembled and that challenges began to pile up.
“It is really, really hard work for coaches, and it’s probably unlike anything most of us have really tried to wrestle with,” said Baldwin.
With the unavailability of the PBA Gilas mainstays due to the conflict regarding the opening of the big league’s 46th season, Baldwin and the rest of the Gilas coaching staff stuck with some of their collegiate hold-overs and added some high school stars to form the competing team for the upcoming international tournaments.
“Not only is this the youngest Gilas group ever assembled, it’s probably the youngest that could be assembled that’ll still be called Gilas. If we went any younger, we could be calling them Batang Gilas,” Baldwin added.
Headlining the new face of Gilas Pilipinas are high school recruits RJ Abarrientos, Carl Tamayo, Kyle Ong, and Lebron Lopez.
Meanwhile, collegiate newcomers are Ateneo’s Gian Mamuyac, Jason Credo, Joshua Lazaro, Troy Malilin, Geo Chiu, and SJ Belangel.
“It’s learning how to do that so you properly prepare yourself for the level that you’re going to face. When you’re gonna face a Serbia or a Dominican Republic, it just doesn’t get a lot tougher in the world than that. So we have to be super prepared and we have to be as tough as we can rely on these players, and so far we’re being pretty tough on them,” closed Baldwin.
