Cone says current Gilas Pilipinas pool stays despite challenging FIBA window

Despite a challenging window in the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers, Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone said the current pool of players will remain the same.

The nationals fell to Chinese Taipei and New Zealand in the recent window and lost two of its three games in the Doha International Cup against Lebanon and Egypt.

Cone said there are a lot of considerations being taken into when forming a pool for the national team.

"It's not easy to pull somebody out or add to the pool or get a bigger pool. There's finances involved, there's budget, there's extra travel time, more practice time. It's not as simple as just saying, okay, now we're going to go to 15, 18, or 20 people," Cone said on Wednesday.

"It's not that simple. And we came in with a program, and we're going to stick to that program as much as we can."

The Gilas pool stays.

Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone says the national team pool will remain the same. No additions, no subtractions, unless players wish not to be a part of it. @gmasportsph pic.twitter.com/n2TGVUf4WP

— JK Carandang (@jk_carandang) February 26, 2025

The pool has a mix of pros from the PBA and other international leagues, including Japeth Aguilar, Justin Brownlee, AJ Edu, June Mar Fajardo, Jamie Malonzo, Chris Newsome, Calvin Oftana, CJ Perez, Kevin Quiambao, Dwight Ramos, Carl Tamayo, and Scottie Thompson. Troy Rosario has also been tapped as an additional piece in lieu of injured big man Kai Sotto. De La Salle University's Mason Amos is also part of the pool.

While Cone is decided with the team's current pool, he hopes that Gilas' recent shortcomings will give them lessons moving forward.

"We suffered some failure at this point. You know, hopefully we can learn from it," he said.

"You don't learn from success, you learn from failure. And I think that what we said from the very beginning, we're not going to win all the time. We're not going to be great all the time. That's just an impossible thing to do. But we can be better than what we were, that's for darn sure. We can be better than what we were."

For Cone, if his current players decide to continue to carry the national colors, then he will welcome it.

"At this point, no, we're not going to add to the pool, we're not going to subtract from the pool, unless there's guys out there that don't want to join us anymore. You know, but as long as these guys want to continue to play and represent, we're going to let them represent."

Cone also took responsibility anew for what happened and admitted that they did not play well during the window.

"Bottom line, we didn't play well, and we didn't defend well," he said.

“We didn’t play well”

Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone reflects on the Doha friendlies and FIBA window the national team played in the past two weeks. He also took responsibility for what happened. @gmasportsph pic.twitter.com/YUf5br6sQf

— JK Carandang (@jk_carandang) February 26, 2025

Gilas Pilipinas is assured of a slot in the FIBA Asia Cup which will be held in Saudi Arabia in August.

—GMA Integrated News