Looking at Ateneo’s massive win over Adamson

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Looking at Ateneo’s massive win over Adamson

by rick olivares

The Ateneo Blue Eagles exacted revenge on the Adamson Falcons with a 73-67 win to close out the elimination round and bag the second seed and the twice-to-beat advantage in the final four.

This match was won on pure grit. They fell behind, weathered runs by Adamson, bucked injuries to two players (three if you count team captain GBoy Babilonia who has missed the last three matches) in Vince Tolentino and Adrian Wong who both went out of the match in the second half. Speaking of the Blue Eagles’ team captain, hey, you miss him now, don’t you?

Babilonia is more than just another center who you perceive to be bumbling and fumbling. He is a smart player who can body up an opposing center, pass that ball and find open teammates, and can read that floor well. Plus, he leads the team. That is very important. A lot of what he does cannot be charted in the traditional stats.

Ateneo could have folded right there more so after center Chibueze Ikeh fouled out. Only they didn’t. They found their strength in the games of Thirdy Ravena, Isaac Go, and Mike Nieto.

Once Ateneo led in the fourth period, they didn’t let go.

Anyways, despite struggling with their shooting, what was impressive was for the most part was their maintaining discipline. They didn’t turn over the ball much finishing with only 10 turnovers that Adamson parlayed into 14 points. The Blue Eagles answered by scoring 15 points off Adamson errors. Plus, they finished with 12 assists to the Falcons’ 7; crucial in this share the ball offense of Ateneo.

The return of the halftime adjustment and the finishing kick

I’ll bet you missed that. We got spoiled by that during the Norman Black years. Now it’s back. And how!

In 14 elimination round matches, the Blue Eagles went into the half,

Tied – 4x

Leading by 10 points or more – 3x

Leading by less than 10 points – 5x

Behind – 2x

Interestingly, in those four halftime level scores, Ateneo went on to lose three of them – NU and Adamson in the first round, and UP in the second round. The only win was against UST in the very first match of the season.

When behind at the half, Ateneo is at 2-1, with a win versus UE in the first round and against Adamson in the second round. The solitary loss came in the first round at the hands of La Salle.

When leading at the half, Ateneo is 7-0.

Outscored the opponent in the second half four times in the first round with three of them resulting in wins.

Come the second round, Ateneo outscored the opposition four times more in the second half. All of them for wins.

Ravena rising.

During the first round, Thirdy Ravena averaged 11.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.7 assists. By the end of the elimination rounds, hos scoring is down at 9.9 points but his rebounds and assists have picked up with 7.8 and 2.3 respectively.

Let’s break that down further in order to underscore his importance – how he performs in the fourth and final quarter.

Thirdy averaged 2.2 points, 1.2 rebounds, and 0.14 assists in the fourth period during the first round. After two rounds of play, he normed 3.4 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.1 assists.

Like his pop and older brother, Kiefer, he is finding ways to and lead his team to victory.

While the Blue Eagles do not run away from their offense that sees them pass the ball around and work for a really good shot, I noticed how the ball has found its way to Ravena to create or attack in the clutch.

That has me thinking. When Tab Baldwin first began working with Philippine teams, he came over as a disciple of the Triangle Offense. He adopted the Dribble Drive Offense while working with the national team.

The situation reminds of the time when Phil Jackson was running the Triangle Offense with the Chicago Bulls and later, the Los Angeles Lakers – they’d run the system but when it breaks down, the ball would go to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant respectively for points or to create.

Thirdy and Isaac Go, who was magnificent once more, are a far cry from Kobe and Shaq but who knows? They are getting better as a duo.

The gang mentality

While the ball finds its way to Ravena, Aaron Black, and Adrian Wong when they need to score, the “team” concept is ever so real.

The Blue Eagles are the only team in the league with NO player averaging double digit scoring! Yep! NO ONE is averaging in double digits in scoring and rebounding. They are the only team with no one player in the column for stat leaders.

And in what I mentioned during the win over FEU in the second round, the Blue Eagles are the only team with four players grabbing at least five rebounds a game -- Ravena (7.8), Mike Nieto (5.5), Chibueze Ikeh (5.4), and Vince Tolentino (5.0). Isaac Go and GBoy Babilonia are a shade under that mark.

To further underscore the gang mentality is Ateneo is the league leader in bench scoring with 38.6 points per game (the starters pour in only 33.6 points which is dead last in the UAAP).

Ratcheting up the defense

For much of the first eight matches, the Blue Eagles hovered around the middle of the defensive standings. After two rounds, they are ranked second behind FEU. Ironically, La Salle at 13-1 is fourth.  

Nevertheless, the team has become better defensively despite its woes at center. Ateneo tops some defensive categories such as the best in shot blocks (4.6), total field goals allowed (34.7%), 2-point field goals allowed (38.8%), 3-point field goals allowed (23.4%), assists allowed (11.1), and bench points allowed (22.9).

During Adamson’s four-match win streak, they were averaging over 60 field goal attempts; several attempts better than the first round where they were taking about 54 shots from the field. In this game, Ateneo allowed them only 58 shots.

And that helped get the team back to the Final Four.

I’ll say that Ateneo has gone from the Walking Dead to the Walking Wounded yet they are, to borrow the title of that famous story of Sheriff Buford Pusser, Walking Tall. After all, in this second round, they have taken down three of the other semi-finals teams in La Salle, FEU, and Adamson in that order.

Before the start of this season, I tabbed (pun intended) the Blue Eagles to make the finals against La Salle. Yes, that was my prognosis despite losing a bunch of players, despite not having fully grasped the new coach’s system, and despite being a young team.

I felt they’d be good in spite of everything because they still had a lot of talent, are potentially deep, and the way they responded in taking down some very good teams that had foreign players in the pre-season; the FilOil Flying V Premier Cup. During the summer tourney, they downed Adamson with Papi Sarr, Perpetual Help with Bright Akhuetie, and National University with Alfred Aroga.

That summer, they won in spite of Thirdy Ravena really struggling to find his game after a year’s lay-off. In spite of that, he averaged double figures and played well in the clutch. They won without Raffy Verano who had yet to arrive from the United States.

Speaking of Verano, he has settled in nicely with the team; adjusted in his role and with local basketball. Watch out for this kid next year!

The team is composed of winners and top players. There are Most Valuable Player awardees, Mythical Five selections, winners who have tasted championships in the juniors level and in Team B. And aside from having smart players who know how to win, this team is close to one another. Many of them have been teammates not only in the juniors division but also in other tournaments. That familiarity and bond cannot be discounted. It’s huge in my opinion.

For all the team’s questions about coaching the past couple of years, losing players to grades and whatnot, they should have gone to the finals last year. Falling short and everything else that happened afterwards has only made them hungrier. And a lot of credit should be given to the coaching staff for bringing the team to where they are at.

Have they overachieved in spite of where I thought they’d end up? Of course.