UP Fighting Maroons. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—University of the Philippines jumped out of the gates and held on to whip Far Eastern University, 73-59, on Thursday in the UAAP Season 85 Men’s Basketball Tournament at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The win was a seventh straight for the Maroons and 10th overall against just one loss this season, and it gave the defending champions a chance to continue fine-tuning their game and spotting things that need to be fixed.
“We just need to work on being consistent,” said coach Goldwin Monteverde. “That’s one part of our game that we need to work on. We can’t play in spurts. We need to be consistent offensively and defensively.”
UP opened the game with a 16-1 run highlighted by a JD Cagulangan triple and never looked back from there.
“After a long break, at least we started well in this game,” Monteverde said. “We started strong. Especially in our defense during the first part, we really started strong.”
The Maroons later widened the gap to 71-50, 1:52 remaining, off a James Spencer trey.
Spencer finished with a career-best 19 points on four triples, pouring in 15 of his total in the first half.
Malick Diouf came out strong down low and finished with 11 points, 20 rebounds, and three assists while Carl Tamayo contributed 10 points, seven rebounds, and two assists.