MANILA, Philippines – Jose Rizal seeks to stretch its run to three as it takes on Perpetual Help in today’s resumption of the 86th NCAA basketball tournament at The Arena in San Juan City.
Drawing strength from Joe Etame’s solid effort, the Bombers bounced back from their opening day loss with a pair of victories including a 66-62 decision over the Arellano U Chiefs that pushed them inside the magic four.
Etame averaged 13.5 points, 12 rebounds and a block in that stretch not only to fuel’s Jose Rizal’s resurgence but also nail him the NCAA Press Corps’ ACCEL/FilOil-backed Player of the Week honors.
Arellano U and Mapua, for their part, gun for a second win as the two collide in the other game at 4 p.m.
The Chiefs won their first outing but dropped their next two including a heartbreaker against the Bombers while the Cardinals split their first two matches after succumbing to the San Beda Lions, last year’s runners up, more than a week ago.
“It’s hard to win coming off a loss but we will do our best to get our second win,” said Arellano U mentor Leo Isaac.
“We hope we learned something from our last game,” Mapua coach Chito Victolero, for his part, said.