Tim Cone emphasizes the importance of early arrival and quick adjustments as Gilas Pilipinas settles in Jeddah to prepare for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.
Gilas Pilipinas immediately went to work after arriving in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, hoping to get themselves adjusted for the FIBA Asia Cup 2025.
Head coach Tim Cone stressed that arriving early is part of their strategy to avoid the pitfalls from the previous qualifying window, where the team struggled with tight schedules and a lack of adjustment time.
“The last window that we did, we wanted to make it as hard as we possibly could. Because once you figure that this is going to be hard, everything is easy afterwards,” Cone shared in a report by Carlo Pamintuan.
“We were really intent on making that as hard as we could—and it was, it was incredibly hard. But now we realized that getting here early, adjusting to the time, adjusting to the weather, having extra time to practice is really important for us."
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Gilas arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday morning. And while the coaching staff gave the players time to recover from the long flight, Cone emphasized the importance of immediately syncing with the local time zone.
“We wanted to give the guys the whole day to recover from the flight, but we don’t want them to be late up at night, so we’re trying to get home, get some food, and get back to bed because we’re gonna get them up at 8 AM tomorrow,” Cone said.
“That will hopefully standardize our time here and get us adjusted quickly.”
The national team, spearheaded by Justin Brownlee and Dwight Ramos, continues to ramp up its preparations ahead of a tough battle in Group D.
With the team now fully focused in Jeddah, Cone believes this extra preparation time could make all the difference.
“We feel a lot better about ourselves this time around, and I think it will show up in our game.”
Gilas will begin its FIBA Asia Cup campaign against Chinese Taipei on August 6 at 2:00 a.m. Manila time, followed by Australia on August 7, and Iraq on August 9.
The continental tournament runs from August 5 to 17, with top teams vying for direct qualification to the 2027 FIBA World Cup in Brazil.
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