UAAP: Grieving Mike Phillips leads La Salle in taking growl out of UST

La Salle’s Mike Phillips against UST in UAAP Season 87.–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

Michael Phillips was in a dark place before La Salle clashed with University of Santo Tomas (UST) in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament.

But that didn’t stop him from providing the light for the Green Archers, who trailed in the first quarter before stampeding to an 88-67 triumph over the badly outclassed Growling Tigers at Smart Araneta Coliseum on Sunday.

“I’ve actually been going through a lot of spiritual warfare the last couple days, weeks,” Phillips said after another dominant performance of 12 points and 18 rebounds that boosted the defending champion Archers to a 5-1 record.

“I am sure [that] if you guys have been in that situation, where everything kinda feels dark, something’s not right, you don’t feel right, you just kinda feel like you’re overwhelmed and the world’s just spinning around you. I just tried my hardest.”

Phillips was grieving the loss of Doleo Susalta, the night duty security guard at the La Salle players’ dorm. Susalta, who became a good friend to the 6-foot-8 power, recently passed away.

“He always did so much, and a lot of times and he was just doing the extra effort for us to make sure we’re taken care of,” an emotional Phillips said. “More than just keeping us safe, he would always check in on us and I would talk to him for hours at night and he would teach me Ilonggo and everything.

“He just recently passed. He was healthy. He was one of my closest friends. I met him [when] I first came here to the Philippines,” he added.

With the Tigers storming out of the gates with an 18-8 run, Phillips and Kevin Quiambao willed the Archers back slowly. They wrested the lead before halftime and were never headed again.

Bench power

Vhoris Marasigan was another shining light for La Salle with 11 points, while Kevin Quiambao, who once again came off the bench, added 10 points and six rebounds.

Topex Robinson got his bench outscoring their UST counterparts, 49-18.

La Salle will cap off the first round with a rematch of last year’s Finals against University of the Philippines (UP), the only unbeaten team left in the field, on Oct. 6.

“We are excited. You know, UP is gonna be [a team] that we’re gonna learn from. We never really called them our enemy. We always call them as worthy rivals because they’re strength is our weakness,” Robinson said. “We just wanna enjoy playing against that mighty team. That really gets us excited and it’s something that I’m sure everybody will talk about.

“For us, we’re gonna learn from them, that’s for sure and I know it’s really gonna be something that all of you guys are excited about,” Robinson went on. “We’re just gonna enjoy it and we just wanna compete against the best team in college, and that’s how we see it.” INQ