HALFTIME: GILAS 35, KSA 28!

Who woulda thunk?

In what is rapidly turning into a worrisome affair, Gilas is barely hanging on to a 7 point lead at halftime, after a spirited display by the supposedly weak Saudis.

Everyone from the media, the players and even the coaching staff (who really should have known better) were one in looking past the Saudis (even if they said they weren't).

Come on. We were all already thinking about Jordan and Chinese Taipei. Let's be honest about that, if nothing else.

OPTIMISM OR MISDIRECTION?

In today's sport pages, RP Team coach Yeng Guiao was guardedly optimistic, saying we had a fair chance of earning one of the three FIBA-World championship slots at stake. He also said that we had a good chance of going to the semifinals and a great chance of advancing to the quarterfinals.

Really? Seriously? Now, I'm all for hope and optimism and all that jazz but after the Jones Cup, I am simply not as optimistic as Yeng Guiao. 

Sure, we'll make it out of our group. But we are expected to. After all, no one expects Sri Lanka to actually beat us. But if we lose to Korea and Japan like we did in the Jones Cup, our next opponent may well be Iran, who beat us by 25 points without breaking a sweat. Then where will we be?

For us to actually have a chance of advancing to the semifinals, we need to finish first in our so-called "Group of Hope". That way, we get to face either Uzbekistan or Chinese Taipei (who also beat us by about 10 points in the Jones Cup).

If we don't do that, then we can chalk this team up as just the latest in a series of heartbreaking mishaps in the increasingly dimming Philippine basketball scene.