Gilas Pilipinas coach Tab Baldwin would like to see his team give a good impression regardless if the chances of making a miracle in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia are impossible.

Baldwin hopes that his young squad can be able to raise the level a notch higher even if Gilas is favored to lose by a wide margin to host Serbia in their OQT match slated early Thursday, July 1 Manila time at the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall.

READ: Young Gilas squad takes on powerhouse Serbia

“I just wanna see the hardwork that we’ve been doing is being applied in the games against excellent basketball teams. It’s one thing to see your hardwork come to fruition against Asian-level teams and we were very, very happy with that,” Baldwin said in the episode of Hoops Life that aired on the Smart Sports’ Facebook page Tuesday, June 29 when asked what will him smile upon the conclusion of Gilas’ stint in the Tokyo Olympics qualifier.

“But we now know that this is another level. It’s got its own unique set of challenges when you play top 10 nations in the world, and you know it’s gonna be something that is gonna highlight those areas that we have to significantly improve on and I think our players need that at this point, our coaching staff needs that at this point. We need to be students now and our teachers are the Serbian national team.

“But again, we need to make sure by the end of the game they will have felt the fact that they were in a tough game. They need to feel that too,” Baldwin also said.

His sentiments are an example of how Baldwin puts high standards on the team of non-PBA players carrying an average age of 22 years old.

The team is being groomed to become a well-oiled machine by the time the country hosts the FIBA World Cup, but Baldwin at this point feels that there's still plenty of work that needs to be done.

“Against the standard that we wanna be at in 2023? 20 percent,” Baldwin said on grading Gilas’ progress following the sweep of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers.

“I mean, we have so much more to learn, we have so much to accomplish in terms of chemistry and cohesion. We still did not apply the basic concepts of the game that we’ve been working extremely hard on. In the live action, we still don’t apply them consistently and we don’t get everybody executing them all at the same time. We still have a lot of breakdowns.

“I think our effort is excellent. I think our attitude is excellent but in terms of execution, efficiency, comprehension of exactly where we want to be, we’re a long, long way. But we’re moving in the right direction,” added Baldwin.

Gilas wraps up its Group A assignment against Dominican Republic early Friday, July 2 in a game that could determine if the Filipino cagers can sneak in a berth in the semifinals of the Belgrade OQT.