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Archers Shoot Down Eagles, Again

The game started out like it was going to be a blow out since La Salle went on a 9-2 run to start the game. This forced Coach Norman to call an early timeout to stop the bleeding. Ateneo came back and tied the game at 14 (I think). From that point on, the Ateneo Blue Eagles looked way different from the Blue Eagles that faced De La Salle in the first round. The first half was a close one despite an unstoppable Ryan Araña who poured in 16 points in the first half alone. He made the Ateneo defense look disorganized. The half ended with La Salle leading by 5.

The game was very close. Well at least in the first half. The second half turned out to be a different ballgame. You would have thought that Ateneo would come back and grab the lead, similar to the game against FEU. But no, Ateneo scored just 10 laughable points compared to La Salle’s 19. So the third ended with Ateneo facing a 14 point deficit.

During this quarter, La Salle had another scoring machine in JV Casio who scored 10 points all in the third. Meanwhile, Ateneo had to bleed for every point. The game would have been a lot closer if Ateneo shot 70 percent from the 15^th parallel. Ateneo shot less than 50 percent from the line, which is a big no-no in basketball. So based on that stat alone, I had a feeling that Ateneo would lose the game. Tenorio even missed two charities, which is very unlikely for him. Even Membrere, who is considered to have a decent free throw shooter, missed crucial free throws.

Tenorio, who scored a magnificent 23 points in the second half in their game against FEU, was nowhere to be found. He scored 9 points in the first half but I don’t think he scored more than four points in the second half of this game.

Ateneo seemed to build some momentum during the start of the fourth as JC Intal scored four straight points to cut the lead to 10. After the play, Intal slightly twisted his knee on a scramble play. He had to be substituted and that’s when the blow out began. La Salle’s lead ballooned quickly as Ateneo struggled to score as well as stop the Archers on their offensive. Final score was 72-55 (tama ba?).

Japhet Aguilar played his usual game by playing superb defense. He collected a number of rejections. By my count, I think he had at least 5 blocks, two on Maierhoffer. I think Intal and Escalona put up their usual numbers. But no other Atenean stepped up during the game. Tenorio, once again had another sub-par game. That makes it 3 of their last 4 games.

It really impresses me that every year, La Salle finishes season with a bang. Despite losing 3 games in the first round, they went on to lose just one game in the second round, a one-point loss against league-leading FEU Tamaraws. Well, except for their last game against UE this Sunday where the result still remains to be seen. And again, it saddens me that Ateneo once again, peaked at the wrong part of the season, as they again ended the eliminations on a losing note. The only good thing that happened to Ateneo to end this season was dealing FEU their 2^nd loss. Remember last season? Ateneo went on a 7-0 blast in the first round but went on to win just 3 or 4 of their last 7 games. La Salle eventually caught up with them in the team standings, forcing a playoff for the second place. Ateneo went on to lose that game against La Salle. Ateneo settled for third place and had to beat La Salle twice in order to enter the Finals. They also lost to La Salle in the Final Four.

With this result, Ateneo killed its chances of getting the second place. This is where the loss against UST comes into play. That loss would go on to haunt the Blue Eagles for a very long time… If La Salle goes on to lose against UE on Sunday, UE automatically gets 2^nd place, Ateneo 3^rd and La Salle 4^th. If on the other hand UE loses, this would force a three-way tie. And the second place team will be decided by the quotient factor, which means that La Salle would get the 2^nd place, thanks to their 18- and 17-point blowout wins against Ateneo. Ateneo would probably get 3^rd place since they beat UE twice this season. Personally for me, this is the situation Ateneo would want to avoid since they would face La Salle, who enjoys a twice-to-beat advantage in the Final Four. La Salle also has the psychological edge with their blowout wins against Ateneo this season. Meanwhile Ateneo’s morale would be way below 10 layers of crap after this game. Dating back to last season, they already lost 4 straight games against La Salle. Talk about psychological edge, huh?

Based on my expert opinion (uluuuul!!!), the two primary factors that cost Ateneo this game are poor free throw shooting and their inability to break La Salle’s press. When a team shoots below 50 percent from the charity stripe, they are almost bound to lose the game. Remember the UP-DLSU game that destroyed UP’s hopes of entering the Final Four? UP shot a horrifying 20 percent from the line! If they made at least 70 percent of their free throws, they would have probably won the game. And talking about La Salle’s press, this forced a lot of Ateneo turnovers, 22 for this game compared to La Salle’s 11. You see, when Tenorio goes to the bench, Ateneo has trouble getting the ball halfcourt. I think he’s the only Ateneo guard capable of breaking the infamous La Salle press, dating back to point guards like Quimpo and Tanchi.

Here’s something that I just came up with. I’m sure you’ve all seen the shirt that AECES is selling. I just thought of a shirt for the De La Salle Green Archers… Here’s what it says in the front:

Ateneo Blue Eagles

And at the back:

Because not all players can get into the La Salle Team B Basketball

Hahahaha! Although I think Tenorio and Aguilar both deserve to be in their Team A. LOL

posted by kArEnEiL @ 8:55 PM