Trailing NU at end of first preliminary phase, UST needs polishing for ‘war round’
The only loss in University of Santo Tomas’ (UST) record in the UAAP Season 87 women’s basketball tournament is the one big question mark in the Tigresses bid to defend their crown.
“NU (National University) will be NU,” UST coach Haydee Ong said. “[The Bulldogs] will be a competitive team until in the future because their recruitment program is still strong and you can’t take that away from them.”
The Tigresses hope to find an answer by looking to that problem by looking at its other six games so far this season—all victories.
“The No. 1 thing that was evident was all the teams now are really competitive and that you have to work for all of the wins this season,” Ong told the Inquirer in Filipino on Saturday after UST capped the first round on a three-game winning streak.
The last of those wins was a 66-57 rout of Far Eastern University (FEU) on Saturday at Mall of Asia Arena.
NU, meanwhile, kept its record pristine after defeating Ateneo, 66-58, later in the day. The Blue Eagles dropped to a 4-3 record heading to the second half of the season.
“On our part, all of our wins were hard-earned,” Ong said, while pointing out what she feels the defending champions need to work on if they want to keep a lock on the No. 2 seed—or even go higher. “We have to check our consistency still from the first buzzer up to the last, especially on our execution both in the defense and offense.”
The longtime mentor’s concern was valid with the Lady Tamaraws having multiple chances to steal the game from the Tigresses even in the final two quarters.
FEU crafted a 10-0 run to cut UST’s lead to just three late in the game. Luckily, the España-based squad woke up just in time to pull away once again by responding with a 7-0 run with a minute and 18 seconds left in the payoff frame.
Kent Pastrana led the Tigresses’ charge with a 22-point, 11-rebound outing with forward CJ Maglupay collecting 13 rebounds and point guard Eka Soriano adding 10 rebounds and six assists.
“[We only have] one loss but the rest of our wins are hard-earned so you can’t take that away from the other teams and we’re lucky that we are here right now on the second seed so hopefully we [at least stay there] in the second round because it will be a war round for everybody,” Ong said.
The Tigresses and the Lady Bulldogs, the Season 86 finalists, will meet again in the second round where UST will be looking to get even. But to do that the Tigresses will try to get as much rest as they can in the one-week break before the “war round” starts as Ong looks to drill to her crew the improvements they need.
“The players will need to be sharp, be smarter. [We need to work on protecting the ball] because we are committing turnovers probably because of exhaustion so our decision-making is very important come the second round,” she added.
