Adamson University remained immaculate late in the first round after holding off National University, 63-58, in the UAAP Season 81 men’s basketball tournament Saturday at Filoil Flying V Centre.
The Soaring Falcons remained atop the league with a perfect 5-0 record while the Bulldogs dropped their third straight win and fell to a tie with University of the Philippines at the seventh seed.
After a slow first half that only saw them lead by five, 26-21, the Soaring Falcons turned on the jets at the start of the third quarter with a methodical 14-5 run to take a 40-26 lead after Jerrick Ahanmisi’s free throw line jumper.
NU managed to fight back late in the fourth quarter cutting the lead down to three, 58-55 after Dave Ildefono’s layup with less than a minute remaining.
Papi Sarr, however, scored on a strong layup and Sean Manganti followed it up with a split from the free throw line for the Falcons’ 61-55 buffer with 20.3 seconds left.
“NU had a good preparation for us so I anticipated that those guys would come out strong,” said Falcons head coach Franz Pumaren. “We’re lucky to survive this ambush, and we made a lot of mistakes making it difficult on our part.”
“Our defense kept us afloat so we were able to hold NU down to 58 points and we’re not the type of team that can outscore any team.”
Adamson’s stingy defense held the Bulldogs to a 32.39 shooting clip, 23-of-71, while the Falcons, for their part, converted 27 of their 63 attempts.
Manganti had a team-high 14 points with four assists and two steals for the Falcons while Sarr had 11 points and 10 boards.
Ahanmisi also finished with 11 points for Adamson while Simon Camacho scored all eight of his points in the fourth.
Ildefonso led NU with 14 points while Troy Rike added eight points and 11 rebounds.