Gilas women’s head coach Pat Aquino knows what the opposition is going to be like when they start campaigning in the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup starting 25 June in Sydney, Australia.
And this is the reason why Aquino would love to spend the remaining time seeing his lady dribblers go up not just against male high schoolers but collegiate players as well.
After being soundly beaten by the Adamson boys squad, Aquino came to the realization that they would need more of that brand of play to get better in time for the Asian championships.
“Definitely, we really need to improve on physicality,” Aquino told Daily Tribune. “But we need that kind of beat down we received from (UAAP runenrup) Adamson as we’re going to expect a lot of those in the FIBA Asia Cup, especially against Australia.”
Aquino and the players are going to do just that in the coming days.
“We’re going to play Azusa Pacific University, a collegiate team based in California, on Wednesday,” Aquino said. “We also have another crack high school boys team playing us on Friday, Mapua. Perhaps, we might try to get a tune up game with a college men’s team before we leave.”
The Gilas cagebelles are bracketed with host team Australia, Japan and Chinese Taipei.
Seeded seventh in the tournament and ranked 42nd in the world, the Filipinas are in for a rough outing.
They begin their campaign against the tournament’s No. 2 seed Australia on 26 June at 7:30 p.m. Manila time.
Ranked third in the world, Australia will be led by Alice Kunek, a 6-foot-2, 31-year-old fresh from winning a league championship in Hungary and Poland.
Also making her return to backstop the Opals is Alexandra Bunton, a 6-foot-5 center/forward.
