Rain or Shine faces early tests when it battles a pair of Taiwanese squads in the opener of the 2023 William Jones Cup set from 12 to 20 August at the Taipei Heping Basketball Gymnasium in Taipei.
Chinese Taipei-Blue will battle the Elasto Painters on the opening day on 12 August at 7:30 p.m. before clashing with Chinese Taipei-White on 13 August at 5 p.m.
Blue is composed of the members of the Chinese Taipei national squad while White will parade the Chinese Taipei youth squad, giving the Elasto Painters the challenge of playing against the home team in the early stretch of their campaign in this prestigious invitational event.
After tackling the Taiwanese, the Elasto Painters will face the United Arab Emirates national squad on 14 August at 1 p.m. followed by the Qatar national team on 15 August at 3 p.m.
Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao admitted that there’s pressure for them to deliver, especially since a Philippine club in Mighty Sports ruled the event the last time it was held four years ago.
“We’re going to have to cram and train for a few days then we will play in the Jones Cup. There’s a lot of pressure since the previous team became champions but we saw them have around four to five imports so our team will be organic,” Guiao said, who also tapped the services of 6-foot-11 big man Nick Evans and naturalized player Ange Kouame for their campaign.
“We’ll represent the country the best way we can,”
Also facing the Elasto Painters in the preliminaries of the Jones Cup that is making a return after a three-year absence due to Covid pandemic are Iran national squad, Korean powerhouse Anyang KGC, Japan U22 squad and American collegiate team University of California-Irvine.
The Elasto Painters will battle the Iranians, who are set to see action in the FIBA Basketball World Cup, on 16 August at 3 p.m. while the Koreans will test their mettle on 17 August at 5 p.m.
The Filipino side will battle the Japanese on 19 August at 3 p.m. before wrapping up its preliminaries campaign against the Americans on 20 August at 3 p.m.
