Gilas Pilipinas and the FIBA Basketball World Cup: A roller-coaster history

For the sixth time, the flag of the Philippines will be raised into the rafters as the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup tips off tonight in Foshan, China, where our Gilas Pilipinas takes on Italy to open Group D.

With the overhaul of the format extend the field to 32 nations, Yeng Guiao's side will only be just the second all-pro squad that our nation had in its proud history on playing in the world's biggest stage, as they battle not just their progression to the second round, but also keeping their hopes alive in their quest in ending our drought in appearing in the Olympics which we last played in 1972 in Munich.

Without any further ado, lets look at the five previous times the country had played in the FIBA World Cup.

1954: Loyzaga tows Asia's best performance in their debut

After our three previous stints in the Olympics, the Philippines debuted at the FIBA World Championship in Brazil, four years after its first staging in Argentina.

The core of the squad used their victorious homestand at the Asian Games more than six months ago to the hilt as they get the best performance by an Asian team in the history of the tournament in Rio.

That squad was led by Letran's Lauro Mumar and San Beda's Carlos Loyzaga, with the latter's performance there earned him the monicker of "The Big Difference" when they end up with a 6-3.

Loyzaga's work was hands-down the biggest impact that the Pinoys made as they get the mbronze medal, and him being part of the Mythical Team as its center, while finishing fourth in scoring with 16.4 points per game.

1959: A huge drop

Five years from their historic feat, the Philippines returned to South America for their second stint. However their feat was not matched, let alone being bettered as they finished 8th out of 13 teams in Santiago, Chile.

Although they won their opener over Uruguay, they lost back-to-back to Bulgaria and Puerto Rico in Group C, to be relagated to the consolation round, where they won three straight, including a repeat against Uruguay to finish at 4-2.

The good thing about this squad was that the new kids on the block have backed up Loyzaga, as Loreto Carbonell lead the team with 15.3 points per game in which we also saw the emergence of the country's first daredevil in Carlos Badion.

For the record, Brazil won the title as it was the debut of the feared Soviet Union.

1974 and 1978: Transition from Good to Bad

After a fifteen year exile when the country missed out three successive stagings (one of those because of Diosdado Macapagal's politics), the Pinoys have had enough of being from the outside looking in, as they qualified for the 1974 edition by winning the ABC championship the year before in Manila.

Composed of future legends such as Adornado, Fernandez, Jaworski and others, the Filipinos ran into the brick wall of USA, Argentina and Spain in Group B, where they lost all three games before wounding at 13th with a 2-6 record.

However that was the last time that we sent an all-amateur team, with the PBA's founding in 1975 meant that we lost the best of the best by the time the World Championships went to our shores in 1978, where we lost all seven matches to finished 8th, which was only made because we went straight to the final round as hosts.

2014: Puso comes to Pilipinas Basketall

Our most recent stint came just five years ago. to Spain where we made our return that was 28 years in the making.

Wait a minute, why 28 years? It's because we were supposed to be there in 1986, but EDSA took a toll on the NCC squad of Lim, Caidic and others as we backed out that left our fans disappointed.

However, that changed when in 2013, when we qualified for the first FIBA World Cup in 36 years as we finished as runners-up to Iran in the FIBA Asia Championship at the MOA Arena, punctuated by the end of the South Korean curse in the semifinal.

In Sevilla, Chot Reyes brought his own brand of basketball, showing a lot of dribble-drive offense yet it was the fighting heart that became the signature of the current Gilas generation.

It was evident in our group games where we gave the a huge scare, as we pushed Croatia to overtime, and put Argentina and Puerto Rico on panic mode before finally got that win at last against Senegal as Jimmy Alapag played the game of his international career on his swansong in a Pilipinas uniform

Truly enough, our history with the FIBA World Cup was with ups and downs and  as we look forward not just to our sixth appearance this year, but also to our hosting in 2023, once again we are proving that our love of basketball is here to stay for the succeeding generations.