Archers dismember toothless Tigers

MANILA, Philippines — As has been the case the past two years, La Salle brought out its sharpest arrows and ripped regular prey University of Santo Tomas to shreds, 94-59, to boost its bid for twice-to-beat incentive in the Final Four of the UAAP Season 80 men’s basketball tourney at the MOA Arena yesterday.

In a virtual replay of their three previous meetings where they won by 38, 43, and 29 points, the on-target Green Archers threw their full weight on the hapless Tigers and posted the year’s most lopsided win to secure a playoff for a semis bonus with a 10-2 record.

“We played well on defense; we’re able to get them to commit a lot of turnovers and convert on transition offense and we played good as team, stayed focus and stuck to the game plan,” said DLSU top-scorer Ben Mbala (17 points, nine rebounds, and three blocks).

La Salle choked UST to 33.75 percent all game, swatting away six shots, and forcing them to 24 errors, which led to 24 markers.

The Archers took the fight out of the toothless Tigers with a 25-8 run in the second quarter sparked by Ricci Rivero, who dropped 11 of his 16 in their breakaway.

Marvin Lee (25) and Steve Akomo (14) paced UST, which has lost to DLSU by an average of 36.25 points since Season 79.

The loss was UST’s 12th straight, two setbacks away from league ignominy for a team, which last won in 2007 and posted a four-peat from 1993-97.

In the second game, Adamson turned to its hot shooting – 13 of its 26 attempts from beyond the arc – to romp off with a 90-77 victory over National U and close in on a semifinal berth.

The Falcons came out firing and seized a 32-12 lead to lay the foundation to their eighth victory in 12 outings while dealing the Bulldogs their seventh loss in 11 games.

“We’re able to establish our game from the start,” said AdU coach Franz Pumaren, whose wards already shot six triples in the first to pull away from an NU squad that missed shooter Matt Salem due to sickness.

“People will tend to notice the shooting but we should look at the bigger picture – we got open shots because we made stops, created points off turnovers. I think for us to succeed, we have to put emphasis on defense but it also helped that shooting percentage is quite high,” he said.

Jerrick Ahanmisi and Jonathan Espeleta each fired 16 spiked by four treys to lead scoring while Papi Sarr and Rob Manalang chipped in 14 apiece.