Gilas Pilipinas women’s head coach Patrick Aquino remains focused on the positive aspects despite the narrow 83-78 defeat to New Zealand in the quarterfinals of the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup 2023 held in Sydney, Australia, on Friday.
According to Aquino, keeping in step with the heavily favored New Zealand only showed that his national women’s basketball team has the tools to compete with the best teams in Asia.
“We just fell short. It was a good game for us; we competed,” Aquino said. “We felt that, really now, we can compete with the best of the best in Asia, and hopefully when we come back, we’ll be stronger.”
Veterans Afril Bernardino and Jack Animam led the valiant fight of the Philippines, with the former tallying 15 points and eight rebounds, while the latter collected a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds.
Bernardino, for her part, said the close defeat will serve as a moral boost for the Gilas Pilipinas women in their future matches.
“I’m actually really proud of my teammates. We did our best to compete,” said Bernardino. “This close loss to New Zealand will have a huge impact on our team moving forward.”
Gilas Pilipinas women will aim for a fifth-place finish when it goes up against either Australia or Korea on Saturday.
