NCAA Season 91 preview: Blazers eye Final 4 despite key losses

Head coach: Gabby Velasco

Last season: 11-7

Key losses: Paolo Taha, Mark Romero

Key returnees: Jonathan Grey

College of St. Benilde head coach Gabby Velasco knows his team isn’t as good as last year’s where the Blazers came just a win short of making the Final Four.

The Blazers lost two of their Big Three with the departure of Mark Romero and Paolo Taha, leaving Jonathan Grey to carry the bulk of the scoring load. But St. Benilde remains unfazed and is approaching the new season with high hopes of possibly making the Final Four.

“It’s gonna be tough this year,” said Velasco. “The loss of the two veteran players, it’s really a big loss for this team. All I can say is that we’re inspired of what we’ve achieved last year when we landed in fifth place and because of that we’re motivated to play harder and to achieve higher than what we achieved last year.”

How far the Blazers will go would depend on how far Grey can take them.

The 6-foot-1 Grey, who has fully accepted his role as the go-to-guy, vowed to give everything he’s got and is determined to give CSB a shot at the Final Four.

“This is my last year so I want to finish my playing years in college without any regrets,” the 23-year-old guard told INQUIRER.net on Wednesday after CSB lost to National University in a tuneup game. “I will do everything this season and so are my teammates. I know we lost some of our key players but I believe in my teammates and our coaches.”

Grey will be the focal point of the Blazers’ offense but Velasco said his team is not just a one-man show with the likes of captain Pons Saavedra, swingman Raphael Nayve and JR Ongteco having the capability to contribute.

“We’re looking at our first option here which is Grey. He’s very talented. He can produce points for us. we’re also aware of other teams stopping him and slowing him down, we have Saavedra, Nayve and Ongteco. These are the four guys where majority of the point production will come from.”

While Grey is CSB’s best player, the leadership will come from Saavedra.

“Jonathan is the quiet-type of leader. He listens to me and he listens to his teammates. As a leader, we’re really looking at Pons,” Velasco said. “Pons is more of a vocal type of player.”

Aside from the loss of Romero and Taha, the Blazers will also have to deal with their lack of size.

“We really have to double our effort in terms of our defense. We can use our speed and more importantly, we have to work as a team and help each other. Offensively, we’ll make use of our outside shooting and it’s going to be a running game for us,” Velasco said of what the Blazers have to do to compensate for their undersized roster.

Both Velasco and Grey acknowledge the fact that the Blazers are a work in progress.

“Offensively, there’s so much to be corrected. Our spacing is also bad today,” said Velasco of the Blazers struggling to score against NU’s defense.

For Grey and Velasco, though, the bottomline is the team is getting better game by game.

“Siguro kulang pa ng push kasi malakas talaga mga kalaban namin (We’re still lacking a lot. But I can say that the team is slowly improving. I feel that all throughout the season, we’re going to improve and I have confidence with my teammates.” CFC

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