Gilas Pilipinas won over Kazakhstan, 67-65, in the basketball quarterfinals of Incheon Asian Games. But the win is not enough to push the Philippine basketball team to the semifinals.
The last game of Gilas Pilipinas in the Asian Games saw the team shooting at the opponent's basket to force the game into overtime and possibly create a bigger winning margin for a better quotient. I simply find Coach Chot's last ditch-effort a travesty of the game and the Olympic spirit. It is such a shameless act that truly speaks of the warped sense of value of Coach Chot and the entire team.
At the very start of the Asian Games, I have been so critical of the way Gilas Pilipinas tried to get its way through highly questionable means. The controversy involving the inclusion of Andray Blatche in the Asian Games line-up was just the start of something wrong with the Gilas campaign. The people behind Gilas Pilipinas simply refuse to follow rules. They were more concerned of winning the gold medal than following rules. And up to the end of the tournament, Gilas Pilipinas tried to employ shameful and illegal tactics to salvage its pride. Sadly, the tactics backfired and all the more dragged the team to shame. The way that Gilas Pilipinas played its last game in Incheon is really a sad and shameful footnote to Philippine sports. The team lost whatever goodwill it generated in FIBA World Cup with its horrible game against Kazakhstan.
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