Gilas Pilipinas assistant coach Sean Chambers was sent by the Samahang Basektbol ng Pilipinas to Qatar to witness the FIBA Asian Qualifiers draw for the 2027 World Cup.
A future PBA Hall of Famer, a member of the 1996 Alaska grand slam team and the only other player in the league to be named Mr. 100-Percent Performance (aside from Norman Black), Chambers shared his opinion at how the Philippines will fare against crack teams from Oceania like Australia and New Zealand and Guam, teams Gilas Pilipinas will go up against in the first round of the Asian Qualifiers.
These four teams are bunched in Group A and poised to qualify in the 2027 FIBA World Cup to be held in Qatar, but will start playing against each other beginning November this year in a home and away format.
Without sounding too cocky, Chambers believes the Philippines has a good chance of making its way back to the world stage for the fourth straight time.
“As a country, we fear no team placed in front of us,” wrote Chambers when asked by Pinoystep.com his thoughts at how tough the group the Philippines is involved in. “We can beat any team when we are in our A-game. There’s no easy road to greatness. We have to play great and win.”
According to Chambers, the Philippines had proven that it’s a world-caliber squad when it played in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament last year, which served as an indication that Gilas Pilipinas can compete globally against some of the best that didn’t make it directly to the Olympic stage and had to go through a stage joined by some of the finest teams the world has to offer.
”I’m learning so much from them, not just in the game, but also on how we watched the videos together, how we handled the players and how we share our inputs to any competition. The journey we had from the Olympic Qualifiers gave us a surreal moment. You knew everybody in the Philippines was watching. You knew everybody was pulling for us that we are playing bigger again than ourselves,” said Chambers.
“Just to give the Filipino fans the kind of joy when they watched us as we vie for an Olympic berth and let everyone know that basketball in the Philippines is top notch. I’m getting a lot of calls from my friends in the NBA and university levels in the US. They were so impressed in the way we played against Turkey, the way we played against Latvia, and the way we competed against Brazil. Nobody in the international community thought that we could play at that level. Kudos to coach Tim Cone because he was so like into it, he was so committed and represent the Philippines to the best he can. He really wanted the most from the players and from the country and we hope we could go from that moving forward.”
In the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, Gilas pulled off a huge upset win over Latvia, 89-80, on July 4, 2024, in a game where the Filipinos surprisingly dominated. The Philippines led by as much as 16, 32-16, before holding off repeated rallies by its rival squad.
Justin Brownlee and Kai Sotto provided that 1-2 punch needed by the Philippines in beating Latvia as the resident import of Barangay Ginebra pumped in 26 points and nine rebounds while Sotto, the team’s 7-foot-3 center, contributed 18 points and eight boards.
Despite losing a tough 94-96 decision to Georgia, the Philippines was still able to make it to the semifinal round, but paid a heavy price when Sotto injured his rib and was sidelined for the knockout duel with Brazil, which turned the heat in its second half encounter with Gilas behind a 14-0 run anchored on former Toronto Raptor Bruno Cabocio, allowing the Brazilians that big finishing kick needed to score a 71-60 win and eliminating the Filipinos from the Olympic race.
The road to the Olympic basketball remains a dream for the Filipinos, who last participated there in 1972 and will have to start altogether beginning with the Asian Qualifiers.
In the Asian Qualifiers, these 16 teams divided into four groups, will play in a home and away format and facing teams belong to their groups in the first two windows. These windows will be in November 2025, February 2026 and July 2026.
The top three teams from each group will then advance to the second round. The teams that will advance in Groups A and C will form Group E while Groups B and D will form Group F. Qatar being the pre-qualified team as host will take one of these spots. All teams will carry over the results they incurred in the first round.
In the second round, there will be two games each per team playing in a home and away format against the other teams coming from the other group. The three windows scheduled in 2026 will be in August and November and the last window will be played in February 2027.
At the end of these two rounds, the top seven teams along with Qatar, will advance to the FIBA 2027 World Cup.
