Big shoes to fill for Gilas women’s 5v5, 3x3 teams in SEA Games with no Jack Animam, says coach Patrick Aquino

The Philippine national women’s basketball teams will have huge shoes to fill with the absence of Jack Animam, the country’s top women’s player who will be unable to join the team’s campaigns in both the 5-on-5 and 3x3 competitions of the women’s basketball event in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi, Vietnam.

“In both competitions, malaking bagay si Jack,” Gilas women’s head coach Patrick Aquino said. “But we will look for whatever advantage we can find. Just like in 5-on-5, we are smaller, but we’re faster. Sa 3x3 naman, we brought in Angel Surada, but she’s also an experienced player, having played for the Under-18 3x3 tournament.”

The Gilas women’s 3x3 squad, composed of Surada, Afril Bernardino, Janine Pontejos, and Clare Castro, opened its campaign on Friday.

In the 5-on-5 competition, Aquino tapped the members of the 3x3 squad alongside other mainstays like Khate Castillo, Andrea Tongco, Ella Fajardo, and Camille Clarin alongside Steff Berberabe, Trina Guytingco, and Gabi Bade.

The Filipina players won the gold medal in both disciplines during the 2019 SEA Games in Manila, but Aquino believes it will be a tall order for the teams to defend both titles in Vietnam against crack opponents.

Their experienced counterparts from Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia had their own professional basketball leagues way before the Philippines, which put up its first-ever pro league just recently.

But Aquino and his troops will look to bank on their experience from FIBA competition.

“Even if they have established professional leagues ahead of us, we as a team is already in Level 1 of FIBA Asia,” added Aquino. “We are seventh in Asia and that’s the experience we got which they can’t get from their leagues.”

And while they will miss Animam, they’re hoping their preparation will be enough to carry them through the tournament.

“We started last February and it’s a bit longer than our last tournament in September,” Aquino added. “We do dedicate our games to Jack, but most importantly, we dedicate our games to the Filipino people and those who believe and support us.”

Animam was part of the National University Lady Bulldogs dynasty in the UAAP and played for Shih Hsin University in Taiwan’s University Basketball Association. She then played professionally for ZKK Radnicki Kragujevac in the First Women's Professional League in Serbia but suffered an injury in December that kept her from joining the squad this year.

She was part of the Philippines’ double-gold campaigns in Manila three years ago.

—JMB, GMA News