University of the Philippines is headed to its first Final Four appearance in more than two decades and head coach Bo Perasol knows just the trick to keep his team ready for its historic journey.
Perasol is aware of the magnitude of the situation they’re in especially with the third seeded Fighting Maroons (8-6) taking on second seed Adamson University (10-4) that has a twice-to-beat advantage in the Final Four.
A team without any experience in the semifinals going on a do-or-die game is sure to have some butterflies in its stomach once the opening team goes up, so Perasol is focusing on uplifting his players’ confidence so they can perform to the best of their abilities.
“I actually don’t talk about our lack of experience and as a coach I need to prop up their confidence that there’s nothing different about the Final Four,” said Perasol Thursday at Epsilon Chi Center in UP Diliman.
The Fighting Maroons, who last played in the Final Four in 1997, will face the Soaring Falcons who have ran over them in the eliminations sweeping the season series 2-0 between them.
Both games were as tense as it could get with the first round ending in a 69-68 score line after Sean Manganti’s game-winner.
The second round matchup was no different, with Adamson taking the 80-72 win behind another one of Manganti’s gutsy plays down the stretch.
UP went on a 22-7 run to go to as close as four, 74-70, with less than two minutes remaining in the game before Manganti decided to shatter the Fighting Maroons’ collective heart with a flaming three-pointer for the Falcons’ 77-70 lead and effectively quashing any more advancements.
Perasol said he kept things simple with his team so as not to complicate the situation and also reminding his players to play better in the end game.
“We make sure to execute the right way, take high percentage shots, defend when we can, don’t allow second chance points, and those are things they can remember,” said Perasol who was once a Fighting Maroon from 1989 to 1993. “We shouldn’t think that we lost to Adamson twice. There’s no doubt in my mind that we can matchup with Adamson well and I think that we have to do better in the end game.”