Jarencio not putting too much stock on breakthrough Tigers triumph

It has been a long time since University of Santo Tomas (UST) cracked the Ateneo code—nine years to be exact.

The Tigers finally figured things out on late Wednesday evening.

UST finally snapped a 17-game losing streak to Ateneo, using a strong finish to hack out a 74-64 victory in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

It was the first victory by the Tigers over an Eagles squad handled by Tab Baldwin.

Not that Pido Jarencio was counting.

“Nothing, it’s an ordinary game,” Jarencio told a pair of reporters after being made aware of the milestones. “I have been a coach for a long time so I am used to those kinds of games where we are sometimes at the bottom and sometimes at the top.”

“I am just doing my job and beating coach Tab is not a big deal but I am giving a lot of respect to him,” Jarencio added.

Key roles

The handpicked talent of Jarencio ushered a new era for the España-based crew who have been bottom-dwellers in recent years. Leader Nic Cabañero did not have his best night contributing only 11 points and six rebounds but the glut of talent that stepped up made the difference for UST.

Rookie Mo Tounkara, Mark Llemit and Gelo Crisostomo, who kept it afloat in the first half where the Eagles were gaining some advantage, all played key roles in the victory.

Tounkara overcame a shaky first half to finish with 16 points and 14 rebounds, Llemit was perfect on the way to a 10-point outing but one of the biggest head turner was Crisostomo whose quietness in the postgame interview was in contrast to the noise he made on the court after punching in 16 points and 10 rebounds.

Ateneo kept UST at bay until early in the fourth quarter before the Tigers bared their teeth with a 16-0 run that grounded the Eagles for good.

“My focus is to have more wins to enter the Final Four. The goal of the team is one game at a time, prepare, win and after that, look forward to the next game,” Jarencio said.

“Ateneo is a well-coached team. It has a good system, they also have [good] players although some are still young but that’s a fighting team so you can’t just take them for granted,” he added.

Among the key cogs for UST was talented point guard Forthsky Padrigao, who faced his former team in the UAAP for the first time in a long while after his controversial exit from the Katipunan-based school.

Padrigao may not have packed a lot of scoring Wednesday but his leadership in the offense has been doing wonders as he dished out nine assists to deal Ateneo its worst start under Baldwin.

“[Padrigao] is a really experienced player because he came from a champion team,” Jarencio said of his floor general, who he used as a part of the solution to solve the Ateneo puzzle. “He almost became an MVP so he is different and an elite player.”

Jarencio is no longer the coach he used to be—very active, volatile and vocal from the sidelines. That change into a more subdues tactician come from trusting his current team.

And the personality change seemed to have worked. The Tigers had little need for Jarencio’s fiery exhortations against the Blue Eagles.

“We got the momentum in the fourth quarter and it continued on. Forthsky, a leader of the team, directing plays, controlling the game. I no longer saw a reason to call a time out and I just asked them if they needed me to call one,” Jarencio said.

“I only called a time out in the last 20 seconds, I still had three by then and I just used it to break [Ateneo’s] defense,” he added. “The team is [moving] in the right direction.” INQ