Veteran guard Kiefer Ravena admitted that after Gilas Pilipinas misplaced to South Sudan — their fourth defeat within the 2023 FIBA World Cup — the morale of the squad is unquestionably low as they remained winless of their marketing campaign.
“Obviously bilang tao, bilang competitor ayaw mong natatalo so ‘yung morale mo bababa talaga and character is how you determine these players,” Ravena stated on the heels of an 87-68 loss to South Sudan on Thursday.
(“Obviously, as a person and a competitor, you don’t like losing so morale will really go down and character is how you determine these players.”)
The Philippines formally crashed out of the race for direct qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics because the loss, coupled with a Japan win towards Venezuela earlier within the day, erased no matter probability the nation had.
Still, Ravena is upbeat forward of their final classification section match towards Asian rival China this Saturday.
“We have one more chance of redeeming ourselves against China. Obviously they want to kinda secure that Olympics spot. So basically it (Japan’s win) cancels out our Olympic contention but, nevertheless, we want to get a win,” Ravena added.
“I mean, to be honest, morale-wise, it’s really not good. We tried to keep it afloat.”
Despite the adversity the nationals are going through, Ravena pressured there is not any time for sulking as they may attempt to end the World Cup on a successful word towards China, who earlier gained towards Angola to maintain its personal Olympics hopes alive.
“We’re gonna try to pick each other up and then still sail the boat that we have to be on the same page and together. Gano’n naman e, kung matatalo kami, together. Kung mananalo man kami, together din.”
(“We’re gonna try to pick each other up and then still sail the boat that we have to be on the same page and together. It’s like that, if we lose, it’s together. If we win, we also win together.”)
—JMB, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
