UNIVERSITY of the Philippines guard Harold Alarcon spun to his left and rose for a fallaway jumper off the outstretched arm of University of the East’s Jack Cruz-Dumont in the crunch time last night.
Propped up by big plays like that, the Fighting Maroons turned back the Red Warriors 77-67 to plunge into the Final Four with a big boost in the 87th UAAP basketball tournament at The Arena in San Juan.
Alarcon boomed in the perimeter shot that made it a 74-63 count with 36.8 seconds left and prompted UE coach Jack Santiago to call his final timeout. It did not matter. Alarcon trooped back to the bench and pumped his chest with two hands—in jubilation of a sterling showing he capped with a career-high 33 points and five rebounds for UP.
Maroons assistant tactician Christian Luanzon gave their charges plaudits for scoring a second straight win to wind up their eliminations campaign with an 11-3 mark.
UP, which will be armed with a twice-to-beat advantage in the semifinals, will face No. 3 University of Santo Tomas.
“I think, it justifies every time we get two straight losses, maganda kapalit, dalawa sunod na panalo and obviously there’s no implications in terms of bearing, iyong seeding for us. But, you know, just like what coach Goldwin would always say every practice, every game is like a championship game for us,” Luanzon said. “It’s all about habits and we wanted to get back into that habit of winning.
“So, but more than that, iyong the way that the players responded and executed on both ends, for sure there’s a lot of things to clean up but you know, it put us in a good position to win this game,” he added.
Defending champion and top seed La Salle, which will also enjoy a win-once incentive, will take on either the Warriors or Adamson University in the Last Four.
The Warriors can still bag a coveted Final Four berth for the first time since 2009 via a playoff for the fourth seed if Ateneo beats Adamson on Saturday.
UE finished the elims with a 6-8 slate.
Quentin Millora-Brown had a double-double of 16 markers and 12 boards to go with two assists and two blocks for the Maroons.
