Without a doubt, this revamped Team Pilipinas squad has some insanely difficult challenges ahead of them in the next few days. It wouldn't be strange for the boys to already feel the pressure from the dominating teams they'd have to face to qualify for the FIBA World Cup, but we feel that they should do their best to focus all their attention on their game with Team Italy tomorrow.
We can't stress this enough—tomorrow's game with Team Italy will certainly make or break Team Pilipinas.
If they don't win tomorrow, they'll have to pull off back-to-back victories against both the tenacious team of Angola and Serbia, a team that can literally field an all-NBA lineup, most notably Nikola Jokic, a legitimate triple-double threat in the center position
Of course, winning against Team Italy tomorrow is easier said than done. We'll probably be relying on big threes to put the pressure on the Italian team, but with Marcio Lassiter and Matthew Wright, our best shooters, injured, both Paul Lee and RR Pogoy have to really step up and make it rain in Foshan.
To makes things even bleaker, our star point guard, Jayson Castro, will not be playing as well so Robert Bolick and the prodigal son Kiefer Ravena will have to pull Team Pilipinas together.
It's not looking good for Team Pilipinas, but when did that ever stop us? We want to help our boys as much as we can so here's our Team Italy Scouting Report: