BANGKOK – To say that Gilas Pilipinas’ basketball gold medal at the 33rd Southeast Asian Games was the hardest to win would be a massive understatement.

For national team head coach Norman Black, being thrust into the competition with barely a day to practice and a hastily assembled roster made the challenge exceptionally difficult.

“This has been a really difficult journey. You guys don't really realize,” said Black after the Nationals copped the gold in the men’s  5-on-5 basketball with an emotional 70-64 win over host Thailand. 

Ever since being notified that he would be coaching the SEA Games team, Black mapped out plans for the national squad as early as September. 

However, the Thailand organizing committee repeatedly went back and forth on its eligibility rules, a move that appeared to disrupt the Nationals’ preparations for the Games.

“I know I shut down the media a little bit, and I didn't talk because every time I would say something, it seemed like the organizing committee would change the rules. So I decided I wasn't going to mention anything publicly anymore because they're using our information against us,” said Black. 

It was only until the team arrived in the Thai capital that they finally held a full practice together – just a day before its opening game. 

“I went four months not knowing what the rules were, not knowing what the eligibility rules were. I formed a team, only to be told I couldn't use that team, and when I formed another team, I was told I couldn't use certain players,” Black said. 

But whatever tricks the host had up its sleeve, it could not simply put a good team down. 

Despite anxious starts and a sporadic offense, the Nationals showed resilience, pushing through their struggles to defeat Thailand -- a team that had been blowing out opponents -- on its home turf.

“When you've gone through what we've gone through to get up to this point, adversity doesn't seem that hard,” said Black as his team had to recover from a 13-point deficit against the Thais. 

“You basically just go out and fight and pull together. In our case, our offense was not very good.

“We couldn't really shoot the ball that well, so we figured we would just play defense and try to get up some stops. Luckily for us, down the stretch, they missed some foul shots that helped us along the way, and that's the reason why we came out on top,” he added.