Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Derrick Pumaren can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
University of the East finally got its breakthrough win after stunning Adamson, 64-57, on Sunday.
“We feel good. We played well. We were able to fight, but the bottomline is we still have to win against Adamson, and we did,” said Pumaren.
Though the Red Warriors have never failed to show fight in their past six outings, they just weren’t able to close games out.
“Yung first games namin, we’ve made stops, we let teams throw the basketball away, but still, the bottomline is we have to put the basket to the hoop. We just have to play with confidence and they just have to keep shooting,” Pumaren said.
But on Sunday, UE did as it finished the first round on a winning note much to the delight of Pumaren.
“We did not play to our full potential,” he said. “Coming into this game, our battlecry was to play our game for 40 minutes. That’s one thing we haven’t done. We played well but we didn’t play for 40 minutes.”
It also helped that UE’s shots went down when it mattered most with Alvin Pasaol firing seven of his 13 points in the payoff period and RR de Leon stepping up with his best game of the season with 12 markers and four rebounds.
“Pinaghirapan namin talaga ito,” said the 21-year-old Pasaol. “The past few games wala kaming close out. Ngayon, pinakita namin na kaya namin ngayon.”
Pumaren is also elated the Red Warriors never lost hope despite coming into the game being dead last in the standings at 0-6 as they rode on their promising showing against La Salle on Wednesday to notch the confidence-building victory.
“Down 0-6, it will be hard for the coaches to motivate the players. But with the way we played against La Salle, nagkaron ng motivation ang mga players,” he said.
With UE finally nabbing that elusive first win, Pumaren and his crew can now look forward to the second round as they eye to build on this victory and make a late run to the Final Four.