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Team Philippines Smart Gilas was bracketed with Group A for the 22nd FIBA Asia Champions Cup to be held this coming May 28 to June 5 at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City. Belonging to Group A Bracket were teams from ASU Jordan, Malaysia’s KL Dragons, Japan and a team from Central Asia.
Meanwhile Group B will be composed of depending champion Mahram of Iran and runner-up Al Rayyan of Qatar, a Syrian and Lebanese team along with Al Sahad of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Serbian Coach Toroman was quoted as saying “The best teams in the competition are in Group B. In Group A, we can build enough confidence if we enter the quarterfinals because any of the teams in Group B will be very, very tough,” said Toroman in an interview by a TV network.
Philippines as a host for this year’s staging of the FIBA Asia Champions Cup have the privileged of choosing in which bracket to play. Toroman opted to play for Bracket A. The Smart Gilas was now reinforced by naturalized Filipino player Marcus Douthit, one of the promising player for the national team.
Their inclusion to the PBA ‘s regular season and eventually reached the semi-finals for the Commissioners Cup was one of the preparation for the FIBA-Asia Champions Cup and the FIBA-Asia qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics.
Pilipinas-Smart Gilas is currently readying to play its best-of-five semifinals series against Barangay Ginebra in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup. The team will be up against one of the most popular and crowd favorite team of the PBA. Their game against Ginebra will do a lot in terms of preparation against a hostile crowd.
Teams like the Ginebra with a huge following will be a good preview for Smart Gilas for they will be facing tougher teams such as China which had dominated Asian Basketball for the past decades and dethroned the Philippines as the Basketball King of Asia.