The team settled for ninth place in this edition.
On Monday, September 14, the Gilas Pilipinas men’s national basketball team returned to action at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
Headed by Coach Tim Cone, the 12-man roster comprises RJ Abarrientos, Jerrick Ahanmisi, Justin Arana, Justine Baltazar, Sedrick Barefield, Brandon Bates, Robert Bolick, Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, Zavier Lucero, Adrian Nocum, Calvin Oftana, and Don Trollano.
The team sought to score a second win in the ongoing regional competition, after their 109-78 win against Kazahakstan on Saturday, September 12.
That, in turn, was a redemption of their earlier loss on Friday, September 11, when they faced Bahrain and finished with a marginal four-point loss against the Middle Eastern squad.
From the very first quarter, an intense rivalry between the Filipino and Chinese squad happened on the court as the latter closed out the first round with a sizeable 20-point lead, 36-16.
Any attempt to narrow that down was found to be fruitless, with the Gilas team only mustering 14 points in the second quarter, while their opponents reached halftime more than doubling their score—66-30.
It was a rather similar case in the third quarter, with Gilas continuing to play catch up, still to no avail.
But it was only in the last quarter when the Philippine team was able to inch closer to their team in terms of score, but that came very late as they ultimately suffered a major loss as the final scores read 105-61.
This is the first major event in the 20th Asian Games calendar, which will have its opening ceremony this Saturday, September 19 and will run until October 4.
