WHAT is the secret to Ateneo’s continuing dominance of the league?
Blue Eagles coach Tab Baldwin is opting to keep it simple– his charges should not blink, even for a quarter.
Ateneo’s resolve will be tested anew when it battles University of Santo Tomas today in the 84th UAAP basketball tournament at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
The curtain-raiser is set at 10 in the morning before National University collides with skidding Far Eastern University at 12:30 o’clock.
University of the Philippines tries to stretch its winning run to nine and boost its hold of solo second when it takes on Adamson University at 4:30 p.m.
La Salle clashes with winless University of the East in the nightcap at 7 p.m.
“I think the mentality issue that we wanna see from a team that we aspired to be– an elite team and that mentality is when you get a team down, you can’t relax, you can’t soften up.
The UAAP teams, I don’t care where they are in the standings, they’re gonna fight, they’re gonna come at you hard,” Baldwin said.
“If you don’t respond and react to that then you’re gonna see quarters like we saw in the third quarter, we were outscored and gave up 24 points, something that we don’t ever wanna see,” he added.
Baldwin spoke after the Eagles downed the Red Warriors 76-63 last Tuesday that hiked their perfect streak to 9-0 this season and 35-0 since 2018.
Ateneo will count on the likes of 6-foot-10 naturalized Filipino center Ange Kouame, Dave Ildefonso, BJ Andrade, SJ Belangel, Tyler Tio, Raffy Verano, and Gian Mamuyac.
The Growling Tigers, coming off an embarrassing 83-112 loss to the Green Archers also last Tuesday, will pin their hopes on Paul Manalang, Bryan Santos, Sherwin Concepcion, Nic Cabañero, and Joshua Fontanilla in their bid to improve their 3-6 slate and break a tie with the Tamaraws and the Soaring Falcons.
The Eagles beat the Tigers 91-80 when they first met last April 9.
Despite his wards scoring a thrilling 73-70 decision over FEU that raised their card to 8-1 two days ago, Fighting Maroons tactician Goldwin Monteverde is far from satisfied.
“For me, iyong mga panalo naman namin ever since ang importante lang after every game is we just try to see ano pa pwede namin i-improve as a team and nadoon naman kami lagi every game so kahit nanalo kami just try to find out siyempre alam naman natin mahaba pa iyong, kumabaga second round,” Monteverde said.
“Ilang games pa going towards the end ng second round, hopefully makapag-pick up kami whatever we could learn, whatever we could get from every game gagawin namin, kukunin namin.”
