By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Gilas Pilipinas ended their quest for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) supremacy after absorbing a 94-67 blowout loss to the Dominican Republic.
The more athletic and physical Dominican Republic players posted tons of problems for coach Tab Baldwin and Gilas as they just dominated in almost every facet of the game.
Gilas played solid basketball and had the lead, 45-41, early in the third frame but a jaw-dropping Dominican Republic scoring run left the young cadets speechless.
Leading by only two points with 3:09 left in the third, the Dominican Republic would begin to fire from all cylinders and closed the quarter with a 12-0 run to balloon the lead to 14 heading into the fourth, 65-41.
As surprising as it looked based on the Philippines’ past performances since the FIBA Asia qualifiers, this is the only second-half meltdown they suffered and were just totally left behind by the more experienced team.
Gilas was outscored 26-55 in the last two quarters and couldn’t buy a basket against a physical and pesky defense they just faced.
Victor Liz put on a show for the opposing team after dazzling his way to a 23-point performance and became a matchup nightmare for the PH’s SJ Belangel and RJ Abarrientos.
Jordan Heading led the scoring for Gilas with 16 followed by Ange Kouame who had 10 points but they were the only players who reached the double-digit mark.
With the tournament elimination, Gilas will head back to the Philippines and are planning to go back to their bubble and prepare for the next round of the FIBA Asia Cup.