THESE Red Lions—hungry and smelling blood – are out to hunt down the Blazers.
“We have to prepare. We haven’t beaten them in the eliminations. Two close games,” San Beda University coach Yuri Escueta said. “Iyong last game namin sa second round, five minutes lang kami bumitaw.
“So, key nga is for us to be healthy coming to the eliminations and get one game muna,” he added.
That’s the goal for the Lions when they take on the Blazers in the Final Four of the 100th NCAA basketball tournament set to kick off on Saturday, Nov. 23, at The Astrodome in Pasay.
San Beda wound up with a 10-8 record after the eliminations for the No. 3 opposite second seed and twice-to-beat CSB.
No. 1 Mapua University, also carrying a win-once bonus in the Last Four, tackles fourth-ranked Lyceum in the other semifinal showdown.
Escueta simply wants his troops to force sudden death.
“Of course, it’s always challenging to play CSB. Hindi naman more on revenge or ano but we just want to win that one game first. Iyon lang muna focus namin and we have to prepare,” Escueta said.
“We have one week to prepare for them and hopefully these guys get back much better.”
The Lions dropped their game in a row 70-79 last Saturday at the hands of the San Sebastian Golden Stags.
They lost to the Blazers 65-70 in the first-round last Sept. 10 and 62-70 in their second tiff last Nov. 13.
The San Beda-CSB duel will be the second time they will meet in the past three editions of the Final Four. In the 98th season, the top-seed Blazers prevailed and advanced to the Big Dance but lost to the eventual champions, the Letran Knights.
The Lions will bank on graduating Yukien Andrada, last cage wars’ finals MVP Jomel Puno along with Bryan Sajonia and Bismarck Lina.
