INQUIRER Sports

THE UE WARRIORS gave the Ateneo Blue Eagles a beating last Sunday that will be difficult to forget, winning with a shocking score of 88-68.

Although we must say that UE played a “dream game” that will be hard to replicate, the Blue Eagles came out soft and too over confident—including their fans.

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In hindsight, one of the turning points of the game was when the coaching staff of Ateneo pulled out Rabeh Al-Hussaini with 2:30 to go in the third quarter because he committed his second foul.

UE was only up by six at that point.

By the time Rabeh was put back in the game at the start of the fourth quarter, UE had pulled away to a double digit lead.

Ateneo could no longer recover.

It is no secret that as of this season Ateneo will live and die with Rabeh.

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Both coaches will be making changes for the third and final game today, though I feel that Ateneo will need to make more adjustments.

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Offensively, they have to give Rabeh more touches.

And they will have to hit their outside shots with a little more consistency to open up UE’s man zone.

But as I said in my last column, so far the best shooting guards of Ateneo have been Emman Monfort and Jai Reyes who will be prone to defensive mismatches especially when fielded together.

They really need a shooting game from the other taller guards like Eric Salamat and Ryan Buenafe.

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For the UE Red Warriors, they have to try and duplicate their game last Sunday both defensively and offensively.

It is very difficult to predict offensively how they are going to play since they have a free flowing offense with a lot of one-on-one plays.

But they must show the same hustle and intensity on their defense to keep the pressure on Ateneo.

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It surprised me when UE started in the first game with a pure man-to-man defense that led the Warriors to be thrashed by the Blue Eagles in the first quarter alone.

They changed their defense to a man-zone in the opening of the second quarter and made a game out of it.

I feel that UE will have to make adjustments on its man-zone to extend it more especially if Ateneo gets a good shooting night.

In my opinion, the way to beat Ateneo is to have a good man-zone.

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I’ve always held the belief that good defense will win you championships.

The winner today will be the team that plays good defense.

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