FIBA impressed by 'puso' of Filipinos during Basketball World Cup bid review

"Puso" was the Gilas Pilipinas' battle cry when the team competed in the FIBA World Cup in Spain last September, marking the country's triumphant return to basketball's highest stage.

Now, it is the Philippines' battle cry once again as the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas competes with five other candidates in the bid to acquire the hosting rights for the 2019 Basketball World Cup.

"The 'puso' is not only in the arena, the puso is everywhere," said FIBA sports director Lubomir Kotleba in a press conference held on Friday at the Shangri-La Hotel in Makati City. "We see the strong dedication approach to the bid from the federation."

Kotleba led the FIBA Evaluation Commission, a four-man delegation of FIBA officials sent to assess the country's capacity to host the international basketball meet.

In addition to ocular inspections of possible venues and logistics, the team was also exposed to the best spectatorship the country can offer as they watched the first half of the game between the league's most popular team Barangay Ginebra and the Manny V. Pangilinan-owned Meralco Bolts.

"We were impressed," Kotleba said, eliciting laughs from reporters as he mentioned the physicality of the match. "Thank you for the opportunity to see the game and I finished where I started - puso."

FIBA Secretary-General Patrick Baumann, who arrived on Thursday for an overnight visit, also admired the fans' enthusiasm for the sport.

"It's been a long time since basketball came here in the 1900s," he said. "You have grown throughout the hundred more years into the best basketball country in the world." — RAF/JST, GMA News