‘Small targets’ making La Salle win big and break away from pack

La Salle Green Archers’ Vhoris Marasigan with coach Topex Robinson during a UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball game. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIREr.net

La Salle is all alone at the top of the standings of Season 87 of the UAAP men’s basketball tournament.

But with a title to defend and every team wanting to claim the Green Archers’ collective scalps, there’s no way coach Topex Robinson will keep his charges comfortable.

“We keep them uncomfortable, and they know it,” Robinson told the Inquirer on Saturday night after the Archers rose to 9-1 with a 70-45 thumping of Adamson.

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“They know that we want to grow. And part of that growth is getting out of their comfort zone,” Robinson went on. ““We kind of make practices and games exciting. Having small targets during games. Just to keep everybody on their toes.”

Playing as the solid favorites against Adamson, the Archers never gave the Falcons the chance to soar with small targets like “limiting them to 10 points each quarter,” quite an aim for quite a formidable foe.

And La Salle almost hit that target.

“We wanted to limit them to actually 10 points per quarter,” Robinson explained. “But we didn’t get it.”

The tight La Salle defense allowed just one Falcon in Cedrick Manzano to score in twin digits, and that’s a big statement.

“We keep our standard so high. We’re going to chase that standard. That’s just keeping everybody grounded,” he went on. “Even us coaches, [we try to figure out] what else can we improve. We’re looking at those things.”

Only University of the East was able to prick the bubble of invincibility of the Archers with a 75-71 victory in the first round, which effectively awakened a sleeping giant as La Salle has won six games since, counting a 77-68 payback win at the start of the second round.

Biggest thing to address

Things that La Salle can improve on include valuing each possession as the Archers have turned the ball over 20 or more times in the three games that they played in round two alone, including having 21 against University of Santo Tomas, which almost completed a come-from-behind win more than a week ago.

And Robinson wants something ingrained in his wards moving forward.

“We cannot rest on that [being error-prone] just because we’re winning,” he said. “The 21 turnovers are really going to hurt us in the end. And we don’t want to [say that it’s okay] just because you’re winning. They know that you just have to keep on improving and setting the standard high.

“That’s what we always do—make sure that these guys know that they cannot be complacent,” he said. “Because there are a lot of stories like that, we keep on reminding them about it.” INQ