Waiting game for Olympic qualifier draw

The Canadians will play in a last-chance qualifying tournament in Manila, July 4-10, where they’ll also face Turkey (No. 8), New Zealand (21), host Philippines (28), and Senegal (31).

Since both Italy and Serbia are qualified for the OQT and were chosen as hosts, Latvia and Croatia moved up and were invited as determined from their finish in the last European championship.

BASKETBALL-CRAZY Filipinos were up till the wee hours on Wednesday for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) draw at the International Basketball Federation (Fiba) headquarters in Mies, Switzerland.

Five other countries will join Gilas Pilipinas in their bracket, while the 12 other teams will play either in Italy or Serbia, who were also picked to host the final qualifying tournament.

The six-team tournament was split into two groups of three. The Philippines, Iran and Japan were in the third.

Team Canada will gather in June for training before heading overseas for pre-tournament exhibition games. “All MVP wants is to make all of us Filipinos happy and proud”, he said. They failed the last time they tried and now, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), the country’s governing body for the sport, said they are facing the same problem. We didn’t make it to the Tokyo Olympics but this time, it will be different because we’ll be hosting.

Gilas Pilipinas clinched a berth in the qualifier by virtue of its runner up finish behind China during the FIBA-Asia Men’s Championship in Changsha past year. At the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain, Greece beat the Philippines, 82-70 and it was the only game where Gilas had difficulty matching up.

“We admit our chances of winning the tournament are slim but you can’t discount the factor of our Sixth Man”, said Barrios.

“This is an important competition where a ticket to the Olympics is at stake”. The Philippines has played in only one Olympic qualifier ever and that was in 1964 in Yokohama.

The Tall Ferns were also handed a hard group although the women’s competition has remained as one larger tournament, in Nantes, France, where the four quarter-final winners plus the victor of the fifth place game to go Rio.