Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin during a UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball game against UP Fighting Maroons. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines — Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin refuses to sulk over the worst loss of his UAAP career, saying the Blue Eagles need to move forward with three games remaining to try to reach the Final Four of the Season 87 men’s basketball tournament.
Baldwin suffered the worst result since coaching in the UAAP in 2016 as Ateneo was dominated by the University of the Philippines, 75-47, in the second round of the Battle of Katipunan on Wednesday at Mall of Asia Arena.
“It’s irrelevant. It’s a very disappointing loss. [But] it’s a loss that you gotta put behind you and move forward,” said Baldwin. “We have three games coming up that we wanna make a positive impression for our players going forward.”
SCHEDULE: UAAP Season 87 basketball
The four-time UAAP champion coach hopes his young Blue Eagles will learn from the tough loss and “work their tails off to finish the season on a very positive note.”
“To have a bad game is not, I guess, as dire a circumstance as some people would like to make it out to be. You can go back to Lakers, Celtics, and 35-point blowouts, and (3:40) then a reversal of form in the next game. Certainly, we’re not that kind of team at this point. But we are a team that can react to a very bad game,” Baldwin said.
“We should be the kind of team and players that react positively to that. And confront those demons, and then come out and become a better team, a better group of people, because of the adversity you face.”
With a 3-8 record behind fourth-placer University of Santo Tomas (5-6), Adamson (4-7), and Far Eastern University (3-7), Baldwin stressed the importance of being an assertive team as they face a tough challenge of reaching the Final Four.
READ: UAAP: UP dominates Ateneo, hands Tab Baldwin his worst loss
“A couple of games in the second round, we’ve been more assertive. We’ve been better for longer stretches. (So I think we need to get back to that mentality of believing in ourselves, playing more assertive basketball,” Baldwin said.
It will be a tough road for the Blue Eagles from here on out, with even a sweep of their last three games not assuring them a Final Four ticket.
Up next for Ateneo is FEU on November 9 at Smart Araneta Coliseum, University of the East on November 13 at the UST Quadricentennial Pavilion, then wrapping up against Adamson after their match last week was postponed due to the inclement weather.
“At this point, results have to go our way for us to even have a chance. And it’s not likely that that’s gonna happen. But we have to put that out of our minds. We have to go play three positive basketball games. We have to do everything we can to win those games. We have to have players understand that their future in the program is in part being measured by how they stand up to these three games,” Baldwin said.
“We’re all under the gun. We all have to feel like there’s a knife at our throat. And the only way to take that pressure off is to be successful in everything that we do,” he added.