MANILA, Philippines — I’d say that the 94-70 win by the San Sebastian Golden Stags over the Mapua Cardinals was a statement win.
With all the brouhaha surrounding RK Ilagan’s playing in another league concurrent to the ongoing NCAA season, it looks like San Sebastian will forfeit its win with Ilagan in the lineup. If the NCAA is true to form, San Sebastian will drop to 1-6 and effectively end its chase for a Final Four slot.
So why do I say that it was a statement win for the Stags? One, look at all their personnel losses for various reasons over the past few months (a bunch of Stags transferred over issues with the coach) – Jason David, Rhanzelle Yong, Lorenzo Navarro, Alfren Gayosa, Ryan Costelo, Justin Mercado and Alvin Baetiong to mention a few – and they are still competing. Imagine how good they would be if everyone remained.
It is good to see Alvin Capobres recover his old form and Allyn Bulanadi pick it up several notches higher to complement the overworked Michael Calisaan. With Ilagan unavailable due to suspension from San Sebastian, Alex Desoyo was given a chance and at one point versus Mapua, buried like four straight jumpers to break the game wide open.
Stags head coach Edgar Macaraya was explicit when he said that Letran coach Jeff Napa should have informed them about Ilagan when their own player, Koy Galvelo, was also with the former for that ligang labas.
This is the second time in the last three seasons where Napa was at the forefront about a complaint about “an eligible player”. The previous incident was when they reported that then-Adamson player Encho Serrano was ineligible. In a cruel twist of fate, the coach whose season he derailed, Goldwyn Monteverde replaced him as the NU Bullpups head coach after the end of that season.
Baste and Macaraya seemed upset at Napa. Why do I have a feeling that this won’t be the end of this?
Mapua, on the other hand, is at 2-4. During the shellacking at the hands of the Golden Stags, head coach Atoy Co walked toward the end of his bench, looked at me, and shook his head.
This is a team that has good pieces. They just need a bit more experience. And probably, better guidance. The body language is bad. Four losses in the first six games? That is more than quota already in terms of acceptable losses.
The Cardinals are the worst in team defense in the league. They surrendered 84 points per game. That is a lot. An average of 21.1 points per quarter. I like the improvement of Christian Buñag but in my opinion, the coaches should have worked on him more to improve his skills. But this isn’t on Buñag. He needs help inside. Warren Bonifacio is a rookie so I am not expecting much. Justin Serrano or Denniel Aguirre are both undersized but they can help out.
I’ll say this though… this is a better team than their record.
The Lyceum Pirates’ record of 7-0 shows how good they are. Even if they are showing the kinks in the armor.
First of all, I do not believe that the 15-minute lull blunted the momentum of College of St. Benilde who led LPU, 13-7, with about four-plus minutes left in the first period of play. That’s the first period. And furthermore, LPU always starts poorly. At least for this season.
I postulated this to LPU head coach Topex Robinson after the match, a 77-65 win over CSB – the Pirates are also struggling because as a team, they did not play much meaningful minutes in the pre-season. Remember, during the D-League, they didn’t field this line-up. It was last year’s line-up. It was a hybrid Team A and B that suited up during the summer leagues. Even with that, players drifted in and out of the line-up with some not playing at all such as the Marcelino twins and Mike Nzeusseu. CJ Perez and Jesper Ayaay played only two matches then left for training in the US.
Robinson agreed with the observation about this team not having played meaningful games as a unit in the preseason.
During games, you can see the Pirates struggle for stretches. Sometimes it’s a chemistry problem, sometimes it’s the gigil factor.
They should be fine soon.
We previously postulated that all these Pirates needed was experience. They got that in last year’s NCAA Finals and in the D-League. Now, they are ready.
And that is what the CSB Blazers need at this point.
That was an intriguing matchup against LPU. I think the Blazers are not only taller, but have some really outstanding position players – Justin Gutang, Unique Naboa, Yankie Haruna, Edward Dixon, and even Clement Leutcheu. That’s five!
How many teams have that many? LPU arguably has two in Nzeusseu and Perez.
What CSB needs to learn fast is settle down and be more patient. Observe Gutang when he enters the court, he is like a shark who cannot wait to devour opponents. The last player who was like that was SSCR’s Calvin Abueva. The swagger can wait, the wins cannot unless you want to say, “there’s always next year.”
Leutcheu also plays with a chip on his shoulder. What he needs to do is to settle down and not take everything personally. He loses focus and his game goes south.
If the NCAA docks SSCR an earlier win for fielding RK Ilagan, CSB will have a win added to their slate. And that should help them (hollow though it may because Ilagan is a legitimate player who just made a bad decision to earn some extra bucks).