Terrence Romeo. Photo by Junnel Maranan/ICM
MANILA, Philippines — Terrence Romeo continued his torrid play as Far Eastern University fought off University of the Philippines, 75-57, Sunday in the UAAP Season 76 men’s basketball tournament at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Romeo scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench for the Tamaraws, who claimed solo lead in the standings at 3-0.
“Same feeling when we’re 1-0. We need to control our emotions. What we’re reminding them, last year they were 4-0. So 3-0 is nothing compared to 4-0,” said FEU coach Nash Racela, who downplayed his team’s stellar start.
FEU led by as much as 29 points but still needed to another big push in the fourth quarter led by Romeo, who scored all of his seven fourth quarter points in a key response, to stave off UP’s fightback.
“That’s something we need to guard. We need to guard against complacency. This year is a different UP team. Anything can happen in a ball game,” added Racela.
RR Garcia added 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists while Mike Tolomia had 10 points and five rebounds as the Tamaraws backcourt did most of the damage.
FEU took control of the game early as Romeo and Tolomia scored 14 of their team’s 23 first quarter points to narrowly outscore UP. The Tamaraws took off from there and blew the game wide open with a 12-0 run to close the second quarter and take a 41-21 lead.
The Fighting Maroons pulled to within 12, 50-62, thanks to a 17-0 surge bridging the third and fourth quarters behind their bench play—before the Tamaraws regrouped and put the game away for good.
After hitting 14 out of their 28 attempts from three-point range in their previous game, the Maroons seemed to have run out of ammo as they shot just 2-of-25 from that area with the sharpshooting Sam Marata missing all of his four tries.
Marata, who scored a career-high 21 points the last time, struggled with just four points on one-of-eight shooting from the floor.
UP, though, dropped to 0-3 despite its edge over FEU in rebounds, 63-52, with Chris Ball hauling down 19. They turned the ball over 18 times which resulted to 20 points for the Tamaraws.
Raul Soyud was the lone Fighting Maroon in double-digit scoring with 10 points to go along with 10 rebounds.