Editor’s note: One of the most valued commenters on this blog is a man who identifies himself only as GilasInsider. After communicating with him privately, I was able to verify his identity as someone close to the team, and he has since been sharing his insights on this blog for the benefit of the fans of the developmental team.

Late last night, he sent in this email, ahead of tonight's game between Gilas and the Jordan national team.

I spent a lot of time with Coach Rajko Toroman today. He had a long conversation with Brian Goorjian, coach of the Dongguan Leopards, who led the Australian national team to 2 Olympic berths, and 2 World Cup appearances. Coach was pleased to find out how highly Goorjian thought of our team. Goorjian said that no one can play man-to-man with us, which is why Dongguan kept playing zone defense against us, and why Jordan practically played zone for 30 minutes in its victory against Gilas.

Goorjian has only been with this Chinese team for 6 weeks, and he said he will replace both of his team’s imports. He claimed he could have beaten Talk N Text, but one of his imports, point guard Kevin Kruger, didn’t play because he was too tired from the Gilas game, wherein he also suffered a major cramp.

Also, one of their players, #7, a Chinese national team mainstay, said he was too tired that he didn’t want to play anymore. (Ed: Dongguan lists #7 as Zhang Kai, a 6’11” center who made it to the 2008 Sacramento Kings training camp as a free agent.) But during halftime of their game versus TNT, he asked Goorjian to let him play, but the coach simply ignored him and kept him on the bench.

All of these, of course, were related by Coach Rajko, who seems to think very highly of Goorjian, and of Mario Palma, who is coaching Jordan.

Coach really likes Marcus Douthit, who will most likely be signed. He loves Marcus’ shooting and his basketball IQ. His only problem with Marcus is that he doesn’t show enough energy; he needs Douthit to be an energy player for Gilas so the other players can feed off it. So far, it’s been lacking.

Douthit is also being offered contracts by a Spanish team and a Russian team. Let’s hope he chooses us. We should know by early next week whether he will sign with us or not.

Gilas players seem confident they can beat this Jordan team tonight. They will have some adjustments for the zone defense of Jordan, although without practice it may be hard to execute.

One reason their zone offense versus Jordan was ineffective was because Douthit only knows one of their zone plays, so that was the only play they kept calling. When the Jordanians adjusted their defense to counter that play, we had a hard time beating it. But our rally in the last 5 minutes of the game was a good sign for us.

Let's hope for the best tomorrow.