Credits: ABS-CBN News
Philippines – Dwight Ramos may consider Gilas Pilipinas’ victory over world No. 6 Latvia in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament as his biggest feat yet, but he’d rather view it as a challenge for the national team to keep elevating its level of play.
“The win is like, the best win in my career, that’s what it felt like,” the 6-foot-4 guard told media on Friday during a fan event arranged by Lawson Philippines at One Ayala in Makati.
“A lot of people thought we wouldn’t get into the semis, but after we lost the game against Brazil (in the semis), it felt like we should have won the whole tournament. So it still felt like a disappointment for us.”
Although Gilas broke a 64-year drought by defeating a European team, Ramos feels they could’ve done better and gone farther.
“[Brazil] deserves it, but I think, if not them, it could’ve been us,” he said.
He also acknowledged the significant adjustment for the nationals – and for him, more pointedly – not having Ginebra star Scottie Thompson manning the backcourt in Tim Cone’s triangle offense.
“It’s hard if you (have to) do a lot of things on the court, but if we had Scottie, he would’ve helped. If Scottie was there, I could’ve done more,” he explained. Despite this, Ramos believes their OQT performance should set the standard for the Gilas program moving forward.
“[Gilas’ future is] super bright. We still have a bunch of years until the next World Cup. We really only practiced for four days before we left and we still made it to the semis,” he said.
Ramos, who had to play the point guard position in the Olympic qualifiers, reiterated at the fan event that Thompson’s absence was pivotal for the team’s campaign.
“I agree [with coach Tim Cone], it’s hard if you have to do a lot of things on the court but if we had Scottie. Scottie would’ve helped with some of the things because he can do a lot of things. I guess it just lets me do more in certain areas. If Scottie was there, I definitely could’ve done more,” said the 25-year-old standout.
The Levanga Hokkaido star said he still feels more comfortable as a shooting guard and also acknowledged Meralco star Chris Newsome’s efforts to step up.
“To be honest, Chris Newsome was more of the point guard and I was more on the off guard. I only played a couple of minutes in the game. Chris really did the whole thing but Coach Tab [Baldwin] has always tried to prepare me for that. I still feel more comfortable playing more as a shooting guard, but, yeah.”
“I think we could have gotten more out of Dwight if he had been in a natural position,” said coach Tim Cone. “But having to play out of position, I mean, he was still great. He’s always great. But being on a scale of one to ten, he’s a ten in maybe his comfortable position, maybe an eight in an uncomfortable position. So that’s kind of what we were forced to do with him.”
Ramos asserted that they could have won the tournament and advanced to the Paris Games.
“It felt like we should have won the whole tournament so it still felt like a disappointment for us,” he said. “It’s a big thing, something to look back on, for sure, but I hope there was more to it.”
Despite the what-ifs, Ramos is optimistic about the future of Gilas Pilipinas.
“[Gilas’ future is] super bright. We still have a bunch of years until the World Cup, and we really only practiced for four days before we left. So four days of practice, we still made it to the semis,” Ramos said.
The former Ateneo Blue Eagle did not forget to thank Filipino fans who supported them on-site in Latvia and in the country — remembering that their games were played at midnight Manila time due to the difference in time zones.