Dwight Ramos was part of the Gilas Pilipinas team that stunned Korea not once but twice in the Clark window of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers.
And the 6-foot-4 combo guard who plays for Toyama wanted another go-around with them, this time in front of his compatriots at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
As fate would have it however, it was not meant to be. The COVID-19 crisis in Korea forced the Korea Basketball Association to pull out of the competition at the last minute.
“I was really looking forward to it,” lamented the 23-year-old Filipino-American standout. “I never really got a chance to play in front of a crowd.
“This is my first time playing here in Araneta and I was really excited to play against Korea,” he continued as he never suited up for Ateneo to go pro in the B.League.
Unlike last year’s iteration of Gilas that had an average age of 23 years old, Ramos is not viewed as a senior by this batch.
Present are Roger Pogoy, Troy Rosario, and Poy Erram — the three of whom he played with during the first window of the Asia Cup Qualifiers. Then there are veterans like Gab Banal, Kelly Williams, and Robert Bolick — all of whom have seen everything in basketball and then some.
A rookie in every right, Ramos has been taking in all the learnings he can get from them. After all, his former head coach Tab Baldwin had always wanted him to eventually become a leader.
“When you play with the veterans, you have to learn from them, especially on and off the court. They teach me leadership stuff.
“They give their advice so it’s helping me as a person, it’s helping me on the court, especially with their experience playing more games than I have. Every team I go to, I try to learn especially from the vets,” he said.
Despite getting two automatic wins with the withdrawal of Korea for the window, Ramos vows that they won’t go up against India on Friday and New Zealand on Sunday lackadaisical.
After all, Gilas has to build on every win heading into the World Cup proper.
Photo from FIBA.Basketball
“With the games being reduced to only two games, it makes every game more important because we only have two this window,” he explained. “So we have to make sure that we put up a good fight and try to get wins in both of those games.
“India lost but they’re a long team. They’re tall so given that, they could cause us some problems so we haveto go out there and try to play our hardest, play our own game, and hopefully we get the win tomorrow. Against New Zealand, we’ll probably have to learn from the India game and after we get to the India game, then we can start focusing on New Zealand.”
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All Group A games of the 2023 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers will stream live on GigaPlay. Download it now on Android or IOS.
The second game of each playdate is also livestreamed on SMART Sports.
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