Gilas' Matt Nieto, Dave Ildefonso out of OQT, Asia Cup Qualifiers due to injuries

Gilas Pilipinas will be minus Matt Nieto and Dave Ildefonso when the nationals wage war in the third and final window of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers in Clark, Pampanga and the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia.

According to the SBP, both players are set to miss action due to injuries they sustained while the team was preparing inside the bubble at the Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna.

“We lost Matt Nieto to a broken hand and he’ll be out for most of June and probably for July but we hope to have him back by the FIBA Asia Cup,” said Gilas Pilipinas Men Program Director Tab Baldwin in a statement released by the federation.

“Dave went out with a suspected stress fracture on his foot but, upon getting a second opinion, it turned out to be a deep bone bruise so he’s going to take June to rehab that and we expect him to come back to the pool in July.”

Even without the two, Gilas will have several young players available to suit up for the tournaments, including the Gilas picks in the PBA draft, like Isaac Go, Rey Suerte and Mike Nieto, alongside the most recent batch composed of Jordan Heading, William Navarro, Tzaddy Rangel, and JD Tungcab.

Also invited to the training camps are Dwight Ramos, Javi Gomez de Liano, Justine Baltazar, Kemark Carino, SJ Belangel, RJ Abarrientos, Carl Tamayo, Jason Credo, Geo Chiu and Lebron Lopez.

The pool is also bolstered by recently naturalized Ange Kouame.

Meanwhile, the SBP has yet to announce if 7-foot-3 prodigy Kai Sotto could make the competitions since he’s still undergoing his 14-day mandatory quarantine.

The loss of Nieto, in particular, is a tough blow to Gilas. The floor general has played in all three previous games in the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers and will be missed when they face South Korea twice on June 16 and 20 and Indonesia on June 19.

“(Losing Matt) created a great leadership void in the team and it’s very difficult to fill,” Baldwin shared.

“Matt is not just a vocal leader, he’s not just a tough guy, we really get a lot of our competitiveness as a team from him. He’s a fierce competitor who hates to lose and that’s contagious in a team environment. We have other players who are competitive but they don’t have quite the drive and they don’t have the contagious nature that Matt has.”

Baldwin said the team will now bank on two rising cagers in Belangel and Abarrientos in setting up plays for the Gilas Pilipinas, which only needs one win in order to advance to the next phase of the Asian qualifiers.

“SJ and RJ are both grooming themselves. They’ve both accepted the role of being leaders,” Baldwin said.

“With Dwight Ramos, it’s still a wish for us. He still has a personality that isn’t vocally-oriented and it’s got to change. It’s a drum we’ve been beating, he’s changing slowly so it is what it is. He knows that’s his job. There are guys who are going to do the job but they won’t do it the way Matt did it.”

—Bea Micaller/JMB, GMA News