It's been a tough ride for the Smart Gilas Basketball Team. From the questionable roster that the team have wherein there's no one in the team who's playing professionally atleast in the PBA, from their ridiculed size and strength inside, from their questionable scoring, from their immaturity since most of the players in the team are just amateur players like Mac Baracael from FEU, Chris Tiu from the Ateneo De Manila University, Dylan Ababou from UST, and Rey Guevarra and RJ Jazul both from Letran, and from their poor defense, the team has faced many criticisms, but these things are just the beginning of "the climb" that the team has been doing for the Philippines.
It's been really a tough ride for the team. Wherever they go, they've experienced several defeats. They went down in the FIBA Asia Champions Cup in Doha, Qatar, finishing 7th place. That is very depressing. Although their team captain Chris Tiu's assessment on why they went down to 7th place, aside from the absence of other key players like JV Casio, Marcio Lassiter, and JR Cawaling, he thinks that the big and long wing players of the other teams especially of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Qatar made many mismatches on their big men. And also, they struggled to win games in Australia wherein they had plenty tune-up games against commercial teams there.
To quote Michael Jordan on what he said about failure "I missed more than 9.000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games, 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." This was really a fitting statement on what the Smart Gilas Team did yesterday, June 29,2010. They put an end to their doubts on not winning the FIBA Asia Qualifiers in Lebanon and on not getting to the 2012 London Olympics. They just won their first ever championship as a team. They won the Manila Invitational Cup 2010 held at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum in Pasay City at the expense of one of the most respected Asian Team, the Jordan National Team. It was a very close game all throughout but come third quarter Chris Tiu, JV Casio and Andy Barroca made three pointers to give Smart Gilas a bigger cushion over the Jordanians.
The Jordan National Team is on a a three game winning streak beating Talk 'n Text, Chinese Taipei Team and Smart Gilas in the first round. But after quite some time wherein Smart Gilas generated some momentum and got enough wins to secure a championship date with team Jordan, this time it was a different story. The Smart Gilas Team won against the Jordanians to the tune of 91-80. It was the sweetest of their wins because it was for the highly coveted championship.
To tell you the complete story of this game I have here an excerpt from www.asia-basket.com:
Nashama were out of coverage today specially Naturalized player Rasheim Wright who is recovering from an injury (8pts) , Smart Gilas were on their top from the arc with above 40% percentage ,! while Jordan NT player missed a lot from the arc with 21% only !! Zaid Abbaas (203-F-83) Shined with 25 points
after Philippines our Nashama will come back to Amman then to fly again to Italy to participate in International Torneo in Bormio (7-11July) along with Italy , Iran and Hungary National Teams . Zaid alkhas and Aymen Idais Will Join the squad after recovering from knee surgeries and missing Philippines invitational .
Jordan NT (80) - (91) Smart Gilas
##Stats## :
Scoring : Zaid Abbas 25pts , Sam Daghlas 19 pts , Islam Abbas 18 pts
Rebounds : Islam Abbaas (201-C-80) 9 , Zaid Abbas 8 , Sam Daghlas 4
Assist : Sam Daghlas 6 , Zaid Abbas 2
Field Goals
29/67 (43%)
3 Points
6/29 (21%)
Free Throws
16/21 (76%)
Rebounds
30
Assists
10
Steals
7
Turnovers
13
Below are videos of the championship game. The first video shows Japhet's jumper, a buzzer-beater which is the most crucial play in the game and the second video shows the nail on the coffin of Jordan! It's time to celebrate!
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