Two things are clear for La Salle in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament.
One, everybody’s after the Green Archers.
Two, they are ready to take on all comers.
“We set the standard high—that is the challenge for us,” coach Topex Robinson said after fending off gritty University of Santo Tomas (UST) with a 94-87 overtime stand on Wednesday night. “We’re not catching [up] to anybody, you know? We aren’t chasing anyone.”
“So we always try to challenge ourselves and, like I always say, winning really hides a lot of flaws,” Robinson added.
La Salle’s only loss in this tournament came at the hands of the surprising University of the East Red Warriors, 75-71, in the first round. The Archers have since avenged that with a 77-68 second-round victory and, with the triumph over the Tigers, have now won five straight games—the league’s longest active win run.
La Salle has eight wins in nine games and continues to be the standard that everyone is chasing. University of the Philippines, last season’s losing Finals foe, was the hottest chaser until the Archers hosed down the Maroons, 68-56.
But UST showed just how eager the rest of the field is to slow down La Salle.
The Tigers rattled La Salle with an airtight defense and flaunted a poise unseen from the España-based squad in a while, as they devoured a 20-point deficit and came within a made free throw of pulling off an upset.
UST’s defense forced 26 turnovers on La Salle, which the Tigers converted into crucial baskets in the fourth quarter.
“We’ll make sure that we’ll spend a lot of time fine-tuning whatever mistake that we made,” Robinson, the sophomore mentor, said before adding that 26 turnovers is just “too much” to yield.
La Salle heaved a sigh of relief when Forthsky Padrigao missed the potential game-winning freebie and after the Tigers failed to cough up a good shot in the dying seconds of regulation.
“[The Tigers] are really playing well together. Coach Pido [Jarencio] is really doing a good job together with the staff there … This is what being a defending champion gives you. All teams will really play their best and base their season on the times that they’re going to face you,” Robinson said.
“You know, these games will be the games that we’re going to go back and then tell ourselves, ‘What were our mistakes?’” he added.
That question will be the Archers’ North Star as they work their way to a second consecutive championship.