Smart Araneta to host FIBA Asia WC tiff

MANILA, Philippines — The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas has chosen the Smart Araneta Coliseum to host Gilas Pilipinas’ first home game in the FIBA Asia World Cup home-and-away qualifying event that starts next month.

The Nationals play before the home fans at the Big Dome versus Chinese Taipei on Nov. 27.

Gilas’ first outing in the reformatted World Cup qualifying system is an “away game” versus Japan at the Komazawa Olympic Park General Sports Ground Gymnasium in Tokyo on Nov. 24.

The Philippines and Tokyo are bracketed with Chinese Taipei and Australia in the first round of the Asian “WC” qualifier.

Chinese Taipei hosts Australia at the Taipei Heping Basketball Gymnasium on Nov. 24, then Australia hosts Japan at the Titatium Arena in Adelaide on Nov. 27.

A total of three windows of competitions are set for the first round of the qualifying series. The second window is on February and the third and last is from June 28 to July 2.

Gilas flies to Australia for their Feb. 22 tiff, hosts Japan in Feb. 25, tackles the Taiwanese in Taipei on June 29 and plays its last home game versus Australia on July 2.

The top three from among the Filipinos, the Aussies, the Japanese and the Taiwanese will advance to the next round where they play the top three from Group D among Iran, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Iraq.

The next series will run from September 2018 all the way to February 2019.

China, Hong Kong, Korea and New Zealand are in Group A while India, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria compose Group B.

The best seven teams from this Asia/Oceania grouping advance to the World Cup slated Aug. 31-Sept. 15 in China.