Even with the growing clamor to add more players to Gilas Pilipinas’ pool after the Nationals’ twin losses in the final window of the qualifiers, head coach Tim Cone is sticking to his guns and will keep the pool as it is right now.

Speaking to the members of the press in his first game back with Ginebra in the PBA semifinals, Cone insisted that Gilas is sticking to the program it first set and will live by the recent losses.

“We're going to stick to that program as much as we can. We're not going to be too hard-headed about it,” said Cone, who returned to the country along with the rest of the team early Tuesday, Feb. 25.

“I guess that's the way I'm being described at this point, being hard-headed. We're not going to be too hard-headed about it. We suffered some failure at this point. Hopefully, we can learn from it,” he added.

It was not the first time that Cone’s lean pool was met with criticisms, but calls to expand it grew louder after Gilas got into a string of losses against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand during the qualifiers, and at the hands of Lebanon and Egypt during the Doha International Cup.

On top of that, Gilas has also lost Kai Sotto to injury, prompting fans to believe there’s a need to add more ceiling to the pool – something that the veteran head coach resisted.

“You don't learn from success. You learn from failure,” insisted Cone.

“I think that what we said from the very beginning, we're not going to win all the time. We're not going to be great all the time. That's just an impossible thing to do. But we can be better than what we were. That's for darn sure. We can be better than what we were,” he furthered.

At this point, the only time Gilas can consider adding someone to the pool is if one among its members decides to leave the program, but otherwise, the team should remain the same.

Cone said he’s well aware of the sentiments of the fans but he’s keen on following the direction he first set for the program.

“ People are going to get angry about it. They're going to get angry at me about it, I guess. That's the bottom line, we came in with a program. We came with an idea. We're not going to change it at that first time,” he added.