Letran’s Kurt Reyson after loss to San Beda. –NCAA Photo
MANILA, Philippines—Letran found itself in a hard situation to start the NCAA Season 99 men’s basketball tournament.
The defending champions, who are looking for a rare four-peat this year, are starting out with four straight losses.
Graduating guard Kurt Reyson, however, is not losing faith. For him, the best thing that the Knights can do is to not put blame on anyone for the squad’s slow start.
“We can’t blame anyone. That’s not on our minds,” said the team captain in Filipino after their 68-63 loss to San Beda at San Juan Arena on Friday.
“We’ll still believe. We’ll still believe in coach Rensy (Bajar) that we’ll get this. We just need one because no one else will help us but ourselves. We can’t point fingers or argue. We’ll stick with the game plan and we’ll stick together so we can get our first win.”
Reyson’s outing of 22 points was put to waste as the Red Lions roared to a 3-1 start.
The Knights, meanwhile, are stuck at the bottom of the ladder with the Arellano Chiefs, who also have a 0-4 card.
As one of the leaders of the squad, Reyson acknowledged the subpar outing of Paolo Javillonar, one of the squad’s most reliable players in the paint.
Still, Reyson’s virtue of not blaming anyone was put to play, saying Javillonar was just pressured in the rivalry game.
“Of course, the pressure for the kid is there, sometimes it’s not but what we’re going to do is to watch our games today so we all can improve. The best thing, really, is to not blame anyone even if they made a mistake. We’ll just correct them.”
Javillonar only had two markers and five boards in 29 minutes of play for the Knights.
Letran looks to finally barge into the win column when it faces Arellano on Sunday.