Lions out to roar loud in closing out Knights
From the outside looking in, it’s easy to predict a San Beda sweep in the NCAA Season 101 men’s basketball Finals, with a dominant Game 1 victory over Letran naturally giving the Red Lions all the momentum they need coming into Saturday.
Everyone could see it that way, but not San Beda coach Yuri Escueta with the way the Knights have been trying to play mind games on his charges.
“We just have to be smarter. We know these types of mind games,” Escueta said after a relatively easy 89-70 victory in the series opener. “I told them that if they’ll bump or hit you, just play better basketball.”
Escueta knows that only good play on the floor wins games. And in their case, at 2 p.m. at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Saturday, it could mean a 24th title in the country’s oldest collegiate league.
“We’ll play basketball and we’ll let them play their own mind games,” he said. “We have to play better basketball.”
Those mind games seem to have affected the Red Lions in small ways in their convincing win. It started early when Allen Ricardo started his reserves in Game 1.
The Lions, though, made the Knights pay early, zooming to a 10-point first-quarter lead before physical play took over, with San Beda guard Agjanti Miller losing his cool before being ejected for two technical fouls.
Miller was stellar with 16 points and nine rebounds, but he was ejected late in the fourth quarter due to technical fouls called for flopping.
The Knights’ mind games are one of the roadblocks and Miller’s possible suspension in Game 2 could change the complexion of the series.
