Gilas Pilipinas may be fortunate for not being bracketed with powerhouse teams USA and Spain but it ended up in still perilous group after the official draw for 2014 Fiba World Cup happened on Tuesday morning (PH time) at Barcelona.
The nationals prevented to be grouped with USA, which might have NBA stars Kevin Durant and Kevin Love leading its team and Spain, which could have brothers Pau and Marc Gasol and Ricky Rubio competing for the host country. This means that the Gilas will not have an encounter with the two mighty squads in the preliminary round.
The USA is bracketed in Group A while Spain belonged to Group C.
However, Philippines isn’t safe either as it ended up belonging to a group B which includes Fiba high-ranking teams such as Argentina (no.3), Greece (no.5), Croatia (no.16) and Puerto Rico (no.17). It is only Senegal, which ranked lower than the national squad in the cluster.
Argentina, a former Olympic champion may feature a team led by Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola while Puerto Rico, a runner up in Fiba Americas may have former PBA import Renaldo Balkman and JJ Barea in their line up.
Croatia and Senegal on the other hand are teams, which are third placers in their respective continental championships while Greece is a wildcard entry this year.
The first (–foul word(s) removed–)ignment for the Philippines will be Croatia on August 30.
Here is the complete result of the draw:
Group A – Spain, France, Egypt, Iran, Serbia, and Brazil
Group B – Philippines, Argentina, Greece, Croatia, Puerto Rico and Senegal
Group C – USA, Finland, New Zealand, Ukraine, and Dominican Republic, Turkey
Group D – Slovenia, Lithuania, Angola, Korea, Mexico, Australia