Camille Naredo

Gilas Pilipinas battles with New Zealand in the  FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers in Pasay City on November 21, 2024. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/File

Gilas Pilipinas battles with New Zealand in the  FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers in Pasay City on November 21, 2024. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News

Article (news)

FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers

Paige Javier

ABS-CBN News

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/175932651434420241121-fiba-gilas-ph-new-zealand-MD34.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="Gilas Pilipinas battles with New Zealand in the  FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers in Pasay City on November 21, 2024. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/File"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Gilas Pilipinas battles with New Zealand in the  FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers in Pasay City on November 21, 2024. <em>Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/File</em></span></span></span></div><p>MANILA -- Gilas Pilipinas has expanded its pool for the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers. </p><p>Among the additions to the list is big man Quentin Millora-Brown, who was recently classified by FIBA as a local player.  </p><p>Gilas head coach Tim Cone earlier told reporters the 6-foot-10 player will be playing for the Nationals against Guam in the November window. </p><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/sports/basketball/2025/9/26/tim-cone-says-quentin-millora-brown-to-suit-up-for-gilas-in-november-qualifiers-2055">READ: Tim Cone says Quentin Millora-Brown to suit up for Gilas in November qualifiers</a></div><p>The pool includes the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup roster namely Japeth Aguilar, Justin Brownlee, AJ Edu, June Mar Fajardo, Jamie Malonzo, Chris Newsome, Calvin Oftana, CJ Perez, Kevin Quiambao, Dwight Ramos, Carl Tamayo and Scottie Thompson. </p><p>RJ Abarrientos, Kai Sotto and Ange Kouame were also the new additions in the pool. </p><p>Sotto missed the FIBA Asia Cup as he continues to recover from the ACL injury he sustained while playing in Japan&#x27;s B. League last January. </p><p>&quot;Continuity is still the main priority of coach Tim Cone but we saw it fit to add a couple of pieces to the training pool,” Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas President Al Panlilio said. </p><p>With Kouame in the pool, Gilas has two naturalized players but can only pick one for the qualifiers. </p><p>&quot;Obviously, Justin will still be the top choice in terms of having a naturalized player in the lineup but we need to take advantage of actually having multiple naturalized players,&quot; Panlilio said. </p><p>Cone earlier said Millora-Brown is the only addition to the team for now. But he remains open to some tweaks in the team for the next windows. </p><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/sports/basketball/2025/8/16/after-quentin-millora-brown-will-gilas-pilipinas-add-more-players-to-its-pool-1653">READ: After Quentin Millora-Brown, will Gilas Pilipinas add more players to its pool?</a></div><p>&quot;We&#x27;ll look at year-end and reassess the team going into the next year. See if there&#x27;s any more changes beyond Quentin Millora-Brown that we might do&quot; the Gilas mentor said during PBA Media Day recently. </p><p>&quot;Since this team is a team of continuity, the Gilas team, it&#x27;s the same kind of approach. At the end of the year, we&#x27;ll take a look. Do we need to make some changes? But we&#x27;re not going to change 8 or 9 guys. That&#x27;s crazy because we have to start all over. We have a really good young core,&quot; he added. </p><p>Cone pointed out the potential in the current young Gilas core composed of 23-year-old Sotto, 24-year-olds Quiambao and Tamayo, 25-year-old Edu and 27-year-old Ramos.  </p><p>&quot;All those guys are 24 years and younger. They&#x27;re young players still developing, not even close to their prime yet. That&#x27;s a core that we&#x27;re going to continue to work with,&quot; he reiterated. </p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s tough because there&#x27;s a lot for them to learn. We want to win, and we want to develop. We want to win now, and yet we still want to develop and get better. </p><p>The youth gives us a chance to continue to develop,&quot; Cone said. </p><p>The veteran mentor said he likes the mix of young guns and veterans in the team. </p><p>&quot;You want those little older guys because they show the way. They show how to prepare for a game. They show how to come to practice and get ready. They show the importance of paying attention to detail. They&#x27;ve learned these things as they&#x27;ve gotten older,&quot; Cone said. </p><p>&quot;Eventually, those 6 or 7 guys will become the veterans. When new guys come in, they&#x27;ll be able to show the way to the new guys. That&#x27;s basically how you build a team and how you continue to build,&quot; he shared. </p><p>Cone believes the current young Gilas core can reach greater heights after playing together for the next few years. </p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s an exciting young core that I&#x27;m excited to be around. We&#x27;re just trying to fit the right pieces around that core so that we can try to win now. We want to continue to develop as we go,&quot; he said. </p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s a team that I don&#x27;t think has seen their best game yet. We haven&#x27;t seen our best game or our best team together yet. Knock on wood, we don&#x27;t run into a bunch of injuries or have something come unavailable or have availability issues. We take this next year by storm by having this core all together,&quot; Cone added. </p><div><br/></div><div><strong>GILAS EYES TOP 30 RANKING </strong></div><p>The Gilas coach said their goal is to reach the Top 30 of the FIBA World Rankings, after slipping to No. 37 last month. </p><p>Cone said they want to show a better outing in the upcoming qualifiers, after finishing seventh in the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup. </p><p>&quot;We had a couple of setbacks that we are disappointed in. We are disappointed that we dropped in the rankings. I knew it was coming and it still hurt a lot to drop. We worked hard to get that ranking back up and then we lost again,&quot; he said. </p><p>Gilas was already in No. 34 back in March, but slid to No. 37 after its tough FIBA Asia Cup campaign. </p><p>&quot;We want to get our ranking in the Top 29. That is our first goal. Get into the Top 29 and then do under 30 and after that, see if we can get it under 25 and then the twenties. That is our goal,&quot; Cone said. </p><p>The last time Gilas was in the Top 30 was back in 2016, when it was No. 27 following the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Manila. Since then, Gilas has jumped between the 30-41 spots in the world rankings.</p><p>Gilas will face a tall task as it battles Australia, New Zealand and Guam in the FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO:</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iRLoTVZDWeQ?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>Gilas Pilipinas has expanded its pool for the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.</p>

Gilas Pilipinas has expanded its pool for the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.

Gilas Pilipinas pool expands with addition of Millora-Brown, Abarrientos, Kouame

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Gilas Pilipinas pool expands with addition of Millora-Brown, Abarrientos, Kouame

Paige Javier,

ABS-CBN News

Published Oct 01, 2025 09:53 PM PHT

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abssports

basketball

Gilas Pilipinas

2027 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers

Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas

SBP

Quentin Millora-Brown

Tim Cone

RJ Abarrientos

Kai Sotto

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