WHEN NUMBERS LIE
When University of Santo Tomas opened the season with two straight wins—convincing ones over the protagonists of last year’s championship battle—everybody talked about how the UAAP men’s basketball tournament was no longer a two-school race.
Then National U and Ateneo entered the picture, building wins over tough programs (the Eagles routed rival La Salle early in their showdown before settling for a scary victory) to also put themselves in the championship conversation.
University of the Philippines started slow, but then racked up four straight wins, including a tense one against a struggling Far Eastern U that essentially typifies the Season 88 picture.
“As we always say, the UAAP is composed of teams that you cannot take for granted, whether it’s teams above, below, or the same as us,” assistant coach Christian Luanzon said after the Maroons’ 69-66 victory over the Tamaraws late Sunday.
The stats are not making sense either.
League-leading National U is winning on defense, based on data provided by UAAP stats team head Pong Ducanes. The Bulldogs are the best at scoring off turnovers (18.7), anchored by a top-3 turnover-forced rate (16.0). And yet, when the Bulldogs escaped the Archers, 82-78, La Salle had more points off turnovers, 14-12.
NU will argue that defense wins games—as most coaches at any level will. But Adamson is this season’s stingiest team, allowing a season-best 63 points per game, but has won just twice in six games.
And University of Santo Tomas ranks last in defense, yielding 83 points per game, but has won four of five. The Tigers are doing it with their league-best offense (91.6 points per game).
UST’s offense breathes through its 51 percent shooting from inside the arc (No. 1) and 41.6 points in the paint (No. 1). Then again, Ateneo is 4-2, streaking to four straight wins to start the season with a lot of help from its three-point shooting.
The Blue Eagles still lead that department despite back-to-back shooting setbacks, making a league-topping 49 triples on a second-best 28.8 percent clip.
Last season, a total of 14 games were decided by five points or less. With still six games left in the first round, eight games finished within that margin—all but one with a difference of a single field goal.
And that’s not counting two UST games—a loss to NU where the Tigers were within a basket under the final two minutes before the Bulldogs peeled away, 76-69, and an epic 98-89 victory over the Eagles that took three overtimes to finish.
“Considering the limited amount of games, you can expect every game to be like a dogfight,” Luanzon said.
And you can expect that numbers will only reveal half the story in figuring out who the real title favorites are.
Like UST assistant coach Juno Sauler said after beating the Eagles in that lung-busting marathon of a game: “Throw away the numbers. It was all heart for both teams.”
