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After historic FIBA Asia run, Gilas Women have high hopes for PH women's hoops

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Camille B. Naredo, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="The Gilas Pilipinas Women hope that their achievement in the FIBA Women" s="" Asia="" Cup="" sparks="" more="" support="" for="" their="" program.="" FIBA="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/sports/07/03/07032023-gilas-women-have-high-hopes-for-ph-women-hoops.jpg"/><figcaption>The Gilas Pilipinas Women hope that their achievement in the FIBA Women&#x27;s Asia Cup sparks more support for their program. <em>FIBA Asia</em>.</figcaption></figure></div><p>MANILA -- More attention, more participation, more support.</p><p>These are the gains that the Gilas Pilipinas Women hope to achieve after their historic campaign in the FIBA Women&#x27;s Asia Cup 2023, where they finished in sixth place -- their highest since being promoted to Division A. </p><p>A breakthrough win over Chinese Taipei in the group stage assured the Gilas Women that they will stay at the top level, and they gave New Zealand and South Korea a difficult time in their last two games before falling just short. </p><p>Coach Patrick Aquino believes their performances show that the &quot;gaps are closing&quot; between the Gilas Women and the rest of the continent, and hopes that they can sustain this for future competitions.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/sports/07/03/23/fiba-gaps-are-closing-for-gilas-women-says-coach">FIBA: &#x27;Gaps are closing&#x27; for Gilas Women, says coach</a></li></ul><p>&quot;I&#x27;m really proud of the girls. What they did, they embraced the future of what we&#x27;re gonna have for Philippine basketball, for Philippine women&#x27;s basketball. I hope this spark would burn like a big burn in the coming years,&quot; said Aquino.</p><p>Their strong showing in the FIBA Women&#x27;s Asia Cup is the latest in a long line of achievements for the Gilas Women, which include back-to-back Southeast Asian Games gold medals in 2019 and 2022, and a silver in 2023. </p><p>They hope that this most recent feat will inspire not just the ever-growing women&#x27;s basketball community in the Philippines but also the stakeholders of the sport to pour in more investment into the program.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s not just men&#x27;s basketball in the Philippines, but women&#x27;s basketball is coming right up. And I hope that the support will continue, and get bigger,&quot; Aquino said. </p><p>&quot;Everyone wants to play for the Gilas team, and now that they&#x27;re seeing us, competing, [and] we&#x27;re right there with them. We&#x27;re not just getting beat by like, 50 points, that kind of thing,&quot; said Gilas guard Jhazmin Joson. &quot;So I feel like the girls back home, they would support us and they would come and join us, just to see what kind of competition there is out there.&quot;</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/sports/06/28/23/gilas-women-stay-in-division-a-after-win-over-chinese-taipei">FIBA: Gilas Women stay in Division A after hard-earned win over Chinese Taipei</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/sports/07/01/23/gilas-women-fall-short-vs-south-korea-finish-6th-in-fiba-asia">Gilas Women fall short vs. South Korea, finish 6th in FIBA Asia</a></li></ul><p>Already, Aquino is drawing up plans on how they can inch closer to the global powerhouses of Asia. The Gilas Women had beaten Chinese Taipei, 92-81, for their first ever win in the group stage, but before that they had lost big to eventual bronze medalist Australia (105-34) and to silver medalist Japan (95-57).</p><p>&quot;We have to continue training, recruitment. It&#x27;s not just in the Philippines, but all over the world,&quot; said Aquino, who has tapped the Filipino diaspora in the United States for players including Duke University guard Vanessa de Jesus. </p><p>He said they have already gotten feelers from Filipinos in Australia who want to try out for the women&#x27;s national basketball team, and he hopes this movement will grow bigger at home as well.</p><p>&quot;[In the Philippines], when you say basketball, it&#x27;s for men&#x27;s only; when you say volleyball, it&#x27;s women&#x27;s. Now, it&#x27;s more of a half-and-half for the girls. So it&#x27;s more of making us try more. Everybody&#x27;s following us. Hopefully we can do a bigger set-up for them and find more talents,&quot; said Aquino.</p><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h9P2hn5-tOc?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

Their strong showing in the FIBA Women's Asia Cup is the latest in a long line of achievements for the Gilas Women.

After historic FIBA Asia run, Gilas Women have high hopes for PH women's hoops

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After historic FIBA Asia run, Gilas Women have high hopes for PH women's hoops

Camille B. Naredo,

ABS-CBN News

Published July 03, 2023 03:58 PM PHT

Read More:

basketball

FIBA

FIBA Women's Asia Cup

Gilas Women

Gilas Pilipinas

Gilas Pilipinas Women

Jhazmin Joson

Pat Aquino

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