Kevin Quiambao–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.internet
Each College of the Philippines (UP) and La Salle talked down Sport 1 of their UAAP Season 87 males’s basketball event title duel just like the end result mattered lower than what it did on paper.
“Sport 1 doesn’t win a championship,” UP coach Goldwin Monteverde stated after the Maroons’ 73-65 victory in Sunday’s collection opener. “[Part of] the method [toward getting a championship] is to get the Sport 1. And [we’ve done that] so we’ll simply need to deal with what we have to enhance by way of [our] lapses [during] the sport.”
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“The one factor that I advised the workforce [was] there’s a cause why it is a collection: you don’t win a championship by profitable one recreation, you want two video games,” La Salle coach Topex Robinson stated after the Archers misplaced to the Maroons for the primary time since, coincidentally, Sport 1 of their title bout final season.
It could possibly be that the teachings from that championship duel final season watered down the impact of this finale’s opener. After the Maroons received Sport 1 of that collection—by 30 factors, in actual fact, the Archers stormed again to take the subsequent two video games and run away with the crown.
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However as if studying from the identical script, each coaches dismissed that slice of UAAP historical past, too.
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“We don’t look again on the previous, that’s achieved and over with,” Robinson stated. “We [know] UP has considered that as nicely, that they misplaced [the series last year after winning] Sport 1. We simply must let issues go and deal with what we’ve got.”
“We by no means dwelled up to now,” Monteverde stated. “So proper now, as I stated, a part of the method of profitable a championship is profitable Sport 1. So we bought it proper now so we’re gonna put together for Sport 2. So we’re gonna do our greatest, [do] every part that we will to [win] it, and when that recreation day comes, no matter comes our means, we’re gonna face the problem there.”
There’s a cause why La Salle isn’t placing an excessive amount of inventory on its comeback final season. A number of the important thing cogs of that champion workforce have already left, placing the Archers in a slight drawback in the case of expertise in this sort of stress check.
“The gamers are totally different now; we’ve got a youthful workforce,” Robinson stated. “The workforce that performed final season is gone and [the players] have moved ahead, so we simply need to slug it out. We simply have to ensure we are going to give ourselves an opportunity to win … they did an excellent job defensively and credit score goes to them they actually got here in ready.” Robinson stated.
Monteverde, alternatively, nonetheless has gamers which have been with him in all 4 Finals appearances of the Maroons.
UP ended a 36-year title drought in Season 84 however misplaced Season 85 to the Ateneo Blue Eagles earlier than crashing towards La Salle in Season 86. In each Finals losses, UP took Sport 1.
So perhaps there’s a little bit of these reminiscences that preserve the Maroons guarded.
“The collection doesn’t finish in Sport 1,” JD Cagulangan, whose dramatic three-pointer down the wire sealed UP’s Season 84 triumph, stated. “We’ll simply return to observe and [expect] that [La Salle] will modify [to] what we’re doing.”
And perhaps that comeback final season means one thing for La Salle in any case.
“We nonetheless have an opportunity. We’ve been on this scenario earlier than, we simply need to carry on being optimistic and attempt to study from this expertise. Once more thats a tricky workforce we performed, we simply need to slug it out in the long run,” Robinson stated. INQ
