The Smart Gilas Pilipinas national basketball team captured the 34th William Jones Cup by beating USA, 76-75.

It was a sweet victory for the Philippine team during the finals of the 2012 Jones Cup in Taipei on Sunday, August 26, 2012.

SMART Gilas was two points behind the mighty Americans in the last 30 seconds of the game. But the smallest player, LA Tenorio, became the hero of the night after shooting the basket from the three point area with only 12 seconds left in the game giving the Filipinos a 1 point lead.

En route to the finals, SMART Gilas won their game against Jordan, Guanghua, Korea, Japan, Iran, and Zhonghua. They lost to Lebanon 91-72 during the preliminaries.

Iran placed second while the United States settled for third.

It was the Philippines’ fourth time to bag the Jones Cup, the last time was fourteen years ago courtesy of the Philippine Centennial Team in 1998, the same team which won the bronze medal in the Asian Games that year.