Stunning defeat
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 12:08:00 07/11/2008
University of the Visayas’ bid for finals seat prolonged with loss to University of Luzon
The eliminated University of Luzon (UL) Golden Tigers stalled the University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers' bid to clinch a championship seat after they hacked out an unbelievable 82-81 overtime win last Wednesday in the Asian University Basketball Championships at the Cebu Coliseum.
Ritchum Dennison made two free throws with 7.3 seconds left in the overtime period and the Green Lancers appeared headed to a win after taking an 81-79 lead.
Rodolfo Natavio, however, came up with an improbable basket that could decide the fate of the Green Lancers in the tournament.
After Dennison's two gift shots, the Tigers rushed the ball down to their court before Natavio got the ball from the left baseline. He stepped back behind the three-point line, spun to his left before fading away to elude the outstretched arms of two UV defenders and nailed the go-ahead triple with two-tenths of a second left.
The stunned Lancers failed to launch a decent shot, sealing the Tigers' huge win.
UV led by as many as 13 points and took a nine-point lead at one point in the fourth period.
Natavio led the Tigers' mighty comeback by scoring 10 of his 16 points in the fourth period and overtime periods.
The Lancers had a chance to ice the game in regulation but Chris Diputado committed a turnover in the final 17 seconds and Norman Ilao made a basket from underneath to send the game into overtime.
UV even stretched an 80-74 lead in the extension period.
Dennison led UV with 16 points, while Gregory Slaughter tallied 14 markers, way below of his average of 22 points a game.
MUST WIN
The Golden Tigers went home with two wins and three losses.
The loss, their first in four games, put the Green Lancers in a must a win situation today against the Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras today The Cobras parade a 2-2 (win-loss) record.
Hanyang University of Korea and Huaquiao University of China were still playing each other as of this writing with the winner getting the first finals berth. The two squads sport 3-1 slates going into that match.
Should UV win against SWU, it will take the second championship slot. A win by the Cobras will forge a three-way tie at second place involving UV, SWU and the loser in the Hanyang and Huaquiao game. The tie will be broken via quotient system. /Correspondent Calvin Cordova
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