ALLAN THE MAN

What began as a 24-team tournament with games being played in four Spanish cities is now an event with 16 sides in Barcelona and Madrid.

We are now closer to finding a champion in the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.The Round of 16 games will be played this weekend and the situation for all title aspirants is simple and straightforward.

The Philippine national men’s basketball team is currently fighting for naturalized star Andray Blatche to be eligible for Gilas Pilipinas in the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea following the organizers’ decision to disqualify him due to residency issues.

This is not the first time that the national basketball team has experienced such incident, as the country also lost some naturalized players when they were deemed ineligible in an Olympic qualifying tournament in 1983.

World basketball governing body FIBA has thrown its support behind the Philippine national men’s basketball team regarding the eligibility of naturalized center Andray Blatche for the Asian Games in South Korea this September.

Blatche has been disqualified from the Asian Games after organizers demanded proof of the NBA center’s residency of at least three years in the Philippines. He was granted Filipino citizenship under a special law signed by President Benigno Aquino last June.

Watch the Top 5 Plays of DAY 6 of 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup; including Team USA Kenneth Faried and Spain's Gasol brothers and an amazing buzzer beater.

The Philippine national men’s basketball team may already be out of contention in the FIBA Basketball World Cup, but that hasn’t stopped Gilas Pilipinas from continuing to impress.

John Schuhmann, NBA.com’s advanced statistics writer, reveals that Gilas Pilipinas has the best net rating of all the teams which have been eliminated from the World Cup.

It took more than 40 years for the Philippines, but they finally won a game at FIBA's flagship event in using their final chance at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and setting themselves up to be an inspiration for years to come back home.

Jim Alapag scored 18 points and Andray Blatche totalled 18 points and 14 rebounds as Gilas got the better of Senegal 81-79 after overtime for their first win in Sevilla's Group B. (WATCH FULL GAME REPLAY HERE) It was also their first victory at the World Championship since beating Australia 101-100 on 8 July 1974.

Barcelona certainly brings very fond memories for USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski. The Catalan capital was the very venue way back in 1992 that the coach sat on the USA bench as an assistant to Chuck Daly who steered the Dream Teamto the Olympic gold.

Not that it was Krzyzewski's first gold medal - he had also been an assistant on the USA's gold medal winning team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Nor was it his last – he now has back-to-back golds from the 2008 and 2012 Games to go with one for winning the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey in between. These three as the chief play caller.