Chot Reyes tempers expectations for Gilas ahead of Asia Cup
Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes has set a modest goal for the national team ahead of the FIBA Asia Cup 2022 on July 12 to 24 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Reyes said they are taking the tournament as part of their preparations for the FIBA 2023 World Cup which the country will be co-hosting with Japan and Indonesia.
“I just want to manage everyone's expectations. We will try our best to get to the top 8 in the FIBA Asia,” said the national team mentor and Gilas program director.
“But the objective really is to take a look at the players that we have on this team and look at their continued development and continue our process of finding out what it's going to take to have the best team for 2023,” he added.
The rest of the team already flew to Indonesia, Sunday night while Reyes and JP Erram are set to follow on Monday as TNT still had to play Ginebra to wrap up its elimination campaign in the ongoing 2022 PBA Philippine Cup.
Reyes knew that arriving there would be the start of the daunting task of getting redemption for the national team after a disappointing silver medal finish in the 31st Southeast Asian Games where the country’s 33-year reign in the region ended when it bowed to Indonesia in the gold medal round.
The national team is bracketed with Lebanon, New Zealand and India in Group D with the top seed at the end of the group stage getting an outright quarterfinals berth. The second and third seed teams from each group will then go a qualifying round to book a spot in the playoffs.
“When we arrive there, there’s a huge task ahead of us. We’re in a very tough group,” said Reyes.
“Lebanon is playing the best I’ve seen in recent years. Their team is really stacked, they're playing a very high level of basketball. It will take our best just to be able to compete with that team and we know how tough New Zealand is and India as you saw are no pushovers as well,” he added.
Gilas has also been battling a slew of injuries to its key players with star forward Dwight Ramos joining naturalized center Ange Kouame in the sick bay.
Fortunately, the young Gilas core got a huge boost from B.League imports Thirdy Ravena and Ray Parks Jr. who are both making a comeback to national team after missing a number of FIBA tournaments in the past.