Bo Perasol says Maroons treating Tigers showdown as ‘knockout game’

MANILA, Philippines—University of the Philippines may be armed with a valuable twice-to-beat advantage in the UAAP Season 82 Final Four, but head coach Bo Perasol isn’t focusing on that perk.

Perasol said he and the Fighting Maroons are looking to finish their semifinals series against University of Santo Tomas in just one game.

“We’re not thinking of that twice-to-beat but of course we don’t really know what will happen,” said Perasol Saturday at Epsilon Chi Center in UP Diliman. “But if there’s a good intention, we’re treating this one as a knockout game for us.”

“As a coach, it’s my job to get their minds right. It doesn’t matter how strong our opponents are, what matters is our mindset.”

UP, however, has a tough task ahead of it since the Growling Tigers beat the Fighting Maroons twice in the elimination round.

UST beat up by an average of 11 points in the preliminaries but Perasol said that their losses were more of a matter of them not doing things right and not the Growling Tigers overpowering the Fighting Maroons.

“I think they outworked us but the things that made them win against us were the things we can address,” said Perasol. “We just have to outhustle them and yes there were things that they took away from us but we have to address that also.”

“The things they did to us, we can address those and find a solution to it.”

UST and UP were nearly similar in conventional stats like rebounds and assists but it was the turnover department that the Growling Tigers imposed their will on the Fighting Maroons.

In the two elimination games, the Growling Tigers forced UP to cough the ball up an average of 16.5 times while they managed to hold their turnovers to 12 a game.

UST also bombarded UP from the perimeter averaging 47.5 points from outside the paint and 37.5 points from beyond the arc.

Perasol admitted that the team became slightly antsy after UST’s 81-71 win over Far Eastern University in the stepladder but he knows they will get to the Sunday matchup with a better mindset.

“I mean if you’re going to compete with a tight mindset then it’s not going to help you and we need to loosen up and believe what we have to do,” said Perasol. “If you’re down then you’re more prone to thinking things that you’re not able to do.”