MANILA (FIBA Women's Asia Cup 2017) - Perlas Pilipinas made waves in 2015 when they topped Division B and advanced to Division A, where they will soon meet the toughest teams they have ever faced.

Head coach Patrick Aquino knows that being grouped with no less than Australia, Japan and Korea means the Filipinas are in for a rude awakening when they begin their FIBA Women's Asia Cup 2017 campaign in Bengaluru, India, but he remains hopeful that his team will learn from all the experiences they are set to go through. Ranked 49th in the world, the Philippine women's national team is the lowest seed in their group and not expected to go far in the tournament, but some battle-hardened veterans and a possible naturalized player coming in, anything can happen.

Aquino is banking on these as he tries to steer the squad to another milestone this year. He sat down and shared his thoughts with FIBA.com.

How are your preparations so far for the FIBA Asia Women's Cup?
Well, we have been practicing since February. We made some changes in our lineup and our systems just to adapt with our opponents in FIBA Asia. We know it's our first time to be at this level, but we don't want to be a pushover team. We would love to show what Philippine women's basketball can also do at this level just like what the men have been doing. We went to Malaysia in May for a series of practice games with their women's national team and their U16 boys team that went to Manila for SEABA. Now, we've been having practice games with high school boys teams just to stimulate high level competition.

What can you say about having Korea, Japan and Australia in your group?
It's going to be a tough mountain to climb with this group. We have the no. 3 team of the world in Australia and the no. 1 and no. 3 Asian teams in Japan and Korea. I know they are more experienced and taller than us, but we have the talent and the Filipino brand of basketball to show them. I always tell my team that we are here to play and not admire how our opponents play. We just have to play our game and see how far we can go. The learning experience will be a lot, but giving our best and showing that we deserve to be at that level is something else.

Will you have a naturalized player for the tournament? Who?
We have Kelly Hardeman in the process of naturalization, and we are hoping that she can be naturalized in time. Kelly was born here in the Philippines and studied here until high school. In college, she studied in the States and played in Europe afterwards. We also have in line other ladies like Kelli Hayes from UCLA and Arnecia Hawkins from Arizona State. Both want to play for the country because they have Filipino lineage.

Which players do you think will step up for Perlas, especially with Ewon Arayi getting up in age already?
We have Afril Bernardino. She was recently MVP of SEABA last year and also Allana Lim, a member of the Mythical Team. They are the 2 most reliable members who can step up for us.

What is Perlas's main goal for the tournament?
The main target is to maintain our Division A status and compete at the highest level we can. Also, we want to get as much experience as we can for the SEA Games in August so we can get the gold medal.

FIBA