5 points from the weekend's UAAP hoops action

MANILA, Philippines – This past weekend, the top two squads chalked up another win as they try to separate themselves from the pack. The middle squads are all bunched together and the last erstwhile winless squad — the University of the East Red Warriors — barged into the win column in a big and convincing way.

Here are five takeaways from those games:

These close wins are only adding to Adamson’s belief

Three close wins in five outings. They will only serve to toughen up these Soaring Falcons. That 63-58 win over NU goes a long, long way in helping this team. 

This is also the second consecutive game where the veterans carried the team, and that is good because outside Jerrick Ahanmisi, the others had their bouts of inconsistency. And Sean Manganti hit big free throws to ice that game for Franz Pumaren.

Yes, there are reasons to smile in and out of this squad’s San Marcelino campus.

That was one heck of a defensive blanket applied by Ateneo on UST

When Aldin Ayo first took over DLSU three years ago, he unleashed Ben Mbala on college basketball. The Green Archers — their first encounter with Ateneo that season was in the summer — and they walloped the Blue Eagles by 32 points with their big man doing much of the damage. At that time, Tab Baldwin was just new to Ateneo and trying to implement a system that they would not fully grasp until a year later. 

Three years later, the scenes have been reversed with Ayo now trying to install his system with UST. And now Baldwin has unleashed his own top big man who proceeded to destroy the Growling Tigers. The result? A 32-point win by Ateneo. 

Ateneo shut down many of UST’s options and forced them into a horrible shooting day. 

This win by UE gives some belief about what they are trying to do

The biggest win of the weekend can arguably be UE’s 90-65 shellacking of FEU. The energy of the Red Warriors was clearly the difference as they never wavered in their match-up. Not even when FEU came knocking. 

Terrific move to have Alvin Pasaol come off the bench. This forced the other Red Warriors to give a good account of themselves. Jason Varilla was solid, as was Philip Manalang, who played one of his best games of his entire young career — 13 points and 12 assists! Plus four rebounds and one steal. 

The rest of the team hit big shots — Chris Conner, Mark Maloles, Jason Strait and of course, Pasaol. A one-man wrecking crew if there was ever one.

But this was a total team effort. Eleven of the 13 players sent in contributed something on the stats sheet. Now, if Rey Acuno can find his game, he will provide relief for Wil Bartolome and Ric Gallardo.

This win is something for this team of Joe Silva — who notched his first win with UE in the UAAP seniors division — to build on.

FEU has to really think of their approach to each and every game

Big wins against La Salle and UP. Two losses are to the bottom two squads. A team with championship aspirations has to come out for each and every game regardless where their foe sits on the table. The loss to UE is embarrassing considering the Red Warriors have no foreign player to anchor that middle. They are still trying to grasp their new system and were in the midst of a losing streak. Of course there is the saying, “bilog ang bola” and that is true. But when you lose to the teams in the lower tier means there is a need to correct a certain approach where it is overconfidence. 

They nearly lost to DLSU in their opener and had they succumbed, they’d be in a rut right now. 

This team is very good. They have a highly-experienced veteran crew with many of them almost done with their college careers. If they want to realize their ambitions, they have to not only learn from this, but rise up. 

This game — this loss — is a reality check for the Tams. Will they find themselves as they play another struggling team in NU for their next match?

That win by UP somewhat eases the pressure

Three consecutive losses and well, another one would make them live very dangerously. But thanks to Juan Gomez De Liaño’s heroics in a 67-61 victory, they are off the hook — for now. Nothing like beating a good team. And you can see how good La Salle is whether they are missing players or not.