Coach Tab Baldwin says Gilas Pilipinas progressing slowly

IN SPITE of the snail pace that Gilas Pilipinas is progressing with in their preparations for the Fiba Olympic basketball qualifiers this July, head coach Tab Baldwin is choosing to look at the glass as being half-full.

With the national team being limited to once-a-week practices, Baldwin admitted to Cebu Daily News in a talk on Tuesday evening that it was challenging to progress at a much faster pace, especially with their struggles to put bodies on the floor.

In fact, the Gilas cadets notwithstanding, there were only seven Gilas players on the floor during their Monday practice.

Still, this was something he expected and was prepared for.

“(We’re progressing) slowly. I guess that is to be expected when you’re training only once a week. We only had seven players on the floor last night (Monday night) so of course, we’re not going to advance by leaps and bounds,” said Baldwin, who was in town to meet up with Ateneo de Cebu officials and alumni.

“But it is also a process built around the concept of trying to introduce a lot of things to the players now so that when we do come in to a camp environment, we can eliminate a lot of that introductory information which can be tedious for the players and the coaches which can take an inordinate amount of time. So if we can get a lot of that out of the way now, that should help us down the road,” he added.

As someone who doesn’t want to waste time especially with the glaring lack thereof in the lead up towards the much-anticipated meet that will be hosted by the Philippines in July, Baldwin says that their current set-up will be geared more towards an exchange of information between him, the coaches and the players.

“It’s just difficult for the players and the coaches to have these types of training sessions that we’re not used to. They lack a lot a lot of intensity, they lack a lot of physical duress and they’re much more built around an exchange of information,” the veteran mentor bared. “Adapting to and adopting knowledge that we’re giving them and that’s going to be the nature of the Monday sessions until the end of the second conference. For sure when the playoffs come around in the second conference, we won’t be getting much attention and we may cancel the Monday sessions much like we did in the first conference.”

And so the cram is on for the Gilas pool to try and grasp a system which they hope will work against the likes of NBA player-laden teams such as France and Canada.