Adamson Falcons vs Ateneo Blue Eagles within the UAAP Season 86 males’s basketball event. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.web
Combating for all times at this stage within the UAAP season is one thing Ateneo isn’t accustomed to.
And that’s the place Adamson has had some success of late, one thing which Hovering Falcons coach Nash Racela hopes to trip on Wednesday when the 2 sides battle for the final Season 86 Ultimate 4 ticket at Mall of Asia Area in Pasay Metropolis.
“I feel the largest expertise for our gamers is the video games within the second spherical. You take a look at us, that’s once we grew,” Racela mentioned as he ready his Falcons the easiest way he can for the two p.m. contest that can have the winner advancing to face No. 1 College of the Philippines (UP)—and be in two straight KO matches with the Combating Maroons to remain alive.
Adamson can be coming off two straight survival matches, the final a 63-61 nipping of College of the East to forge this playoff.
Ateneo, alternatively, has been on a roller-coaster trip the complete season so far. A 72-69 loss by the hands of rampaging La Salle dropped the defending champion Blue Eagles to this match towards the Falcons, who prevailed the final time they met.
“Adamson’s actually robust, everyone knows that,” Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin mentioned after that loss to La Salle final Saturday. “They’re one of many harder groups to cope with.”
The stats sheets won’t matter a lot in a match like this one, particularly after each colleges break up their elimination stage clashes. Just one intangible facet appears to be favoring the Eagles, although, and that’s the championship expertise of its core.
The Eagles know when to play their finest when they should, having scored victories over UP, La Salle and all the opposite massive weapons within the league in the course of the course of their up-and-down marketing campaign so far.
Like final yr?
Racela, alternatively, can be banking on the toughness of his crew in scraping out wins in KO matches, simply the way in which this facet did final yr when it bundled out the Inexperienced Archers in a playoff for No. 4.
In the meantime, two different excessive stakes video games are slated with the beginning of the ladies’s semifinals beginning with the 9 a.m. conflict between defending champion and prime seed Nationwide College (NU) towards Ateneo.
College of Santo Tomas, the second seed, battles UP within the 11 a.m. sport, with each the Woman Bulldogs and the Golden Tigresses needing to win simply as soon as to make the title collection.
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And regardless of the Woman Bulldogs holding a 21-game streak over the Blue Eagles, coach Aris Dimaunahan is cautious of the problem the Kacey dela Rosa-bannered staff will give.