Tough love from mom lights fire under Mike DiGregorio

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Practices haven’t been  fun for Blackwater through the course of its four-game losing slide, admitted Mike DiGregorio.

What made things tougher for DiGregorio was the frustrations reaching home, with his mom always at his ears amid their slump.

“She’s a big basketball junkie and my harshest critic. She calls me after every game and she really let me have it,” he said.

Things didn’t get better after DiGregorio’s two-point outing in the Elite’s 72-78 defeat to Magnolia last Friday, with the matriarch making sure that Mike knows what he did terribly.

“She told me I wasn’t playing aggressive enough and I didn’t look like myself in the last game. She really let me have it. She’s really blunt and straightforward,” he said.

Knowing that there’s another tongue-lashing from his along the way if he didn’t get his act straight, DiGregorio made sure to make his momma proud, lighting up for 26 points on a red-hot 5-of-9 shooting from three to anchor Blackwater to a confidence-boosting 106-96 upset win over San Miguel on Friday.

“This one is for her. I appreciate her a lot because I came in today with the right mindset,” he said, thanking his mom for lighting a fire under him.

“I really wanted to prove to everybody and remind everybody, more importantly myself of what kind of player I am.”

DiGregorio, however, knows better not to be too satisfied with this one-game explosion as he acknowledges the load of work Blackwater needs to make a belated run in the 2018 PBA Philippine Cup.

“We got to be consistent. It feels good to win, obviously, because we really needed this one. But we really need to have a sense of urgency going to our games against Kia, Phoenix, and NLEX,” he said.