Robinson not losing sleep over Pirates’ 28 turnovers

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net

CJ Perez may have gotten his career-best in scoring, but it was his six turnovers that caught coach Topex Robinson’s attention.

“Career-high in turnovers, too?,” the mentor quipped after Lyceum’s 78-73 win over San Sebastian on Friday where his prized ward dropped 28 points along with 10 rebounds against his six turnovers.

Not that Robinson was looking for faults in Perez’ game.

The soft-spoken mentor knows that turnovers are an inevitable part of his team’s game given the Pirates’ fast-paced system. What counts is how they make up for those miscues.

“The thing about our team is we’re allowed to make mistakes. It’s not a sin to turn the ball over because you know that they really didn’t mean to turn the ball over,” said Robinson.

“What’s important is how you get back after that turnover. I guess that’s very important to our team. So you just have to trust them that they’re gonna make mistakes and they’ll be responsible to make up for those mistakes later on.”

That mindset has been ingrained in the Pirates with Robinson trusting his players to make the right decisions, and it has worked wonders so far as they tout an immaculate 15-0 record this NCAA Season 93.

“I just remind them of things, but I’m not gonna get mad at them. I played and I know the feeling if there’s so much pressure, but again, there’s no such thing as a perfect game. So we just let them be. They’re committing mistakes, but then again, I can trust them that they will always fight back and make up for those,” he said.

The Pirates committed 28 turnovers in the game against the Golden Stags, no doubt a high mark for any team seeking to contend for a title.

But Lyceum did not let San Sebastian take advantage of those, forcing the latter to commit 27 turnovers and holding them to a measly 34-percent clip from the field.

Three wins away from completing the unprecedented 18-0 sweep in the elimination phase, the Pirates brace for the toughest stretch yet as they close their schedule with games against Letran, Jose Rizal U, and San Beda.

Robinson has already accepted that more miscues will be coming Lyceum’s way, and a lot of which may come from his leaders like Perez. But the only way to negate that is to keep his wards prepared for everything that will be thrown at them.

“We’ll work on the things that we have control of which is our preparation, on how we’re gonna cover our mistakes,” he said. “We wanna focus all of our energy to us, on how we’re gonna keep on growing, how we’re gonna keep on improving. That’s the good thing about committing mistakes: there’s always room for correction and always room for growth.”