Kieffer Alas out of FIBA U17 World Cup due to injury

Updated Sat, June 29, 2024 at 9:22 AM Published Thu, June 27, 2024 at 2:44 PM

Kieffer Alas, initially slated to captain the Gilas Pilipinas U17 men's national team, has been ruled out of the FIBA U17 World Cup due to a left knee injury.

Kurt Nathan Velasquez, Joaquin Ludovice, Irus Chua, and Champ Arejola are expected to lead the team in Alas's absence.

The Philippines is bracketed with Lithuania, Spain, and Puerto Rico in Group A for the tournament which runs from June 29 to July 7 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Gilas Pilipinas will face powerhouse Lithuania in their opening game on June 29, followed by matches against Spain on June 30 and Puerto Rico on July 2.

The team earned its spot in the World Cup after a semifinal stint in the Fiba U16 Asian Championship last year, marking the Philippines' third appearance in the U17 World Cup.

All four teams per group advance to the next round, where Groups A and B will face each other in a crossover format based on their group phase ranking.

Topics in this story

Explore more stories about these topics.

Gilas Pilipinas Spain World Cup

🤖

This story was generated by AI to help you understand the key points. For more detailed coverage, please see the news articles from trusted media outlets below.

News Sources

See how different news organizations are covering this story. Below are the original articles from various Philippine news sources that contributed to this summary.