Looking at Ateneo’s Game One win over UP

Looking at Ateneo’s Game One win over UP

by rick olivares pic by joseph nocos

You have to give credit to the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons who picked up from where they left off (the Final Four triumph over Adamson) with their frenetic pace and scorching shooting that had the Ateneo Blue Eagles reeling.

Some of the Blue Eagles’ starters and bench players didn’t get the job done as opposed to their UP counterparts that it took the individual brilliance of Thirdy Ravena and Matt Nieto to win Game One of the Season 81 Finals, 88-79.

In fairness to the Blue Eagles’ bench and even the UP players, in my opinion it was the moment. That was some shooting display from the outside – their best of the season. When you have Diego Dario nailing shots from a few steps past the three-point arc like that --and he has been much of an afterthought since Bo Perasol came on board – there isn’t much you can do... at least for a half.

And this was the first game the Blue Eagles won despite being torched from the outside.

Team	3pts 1st Qtr`	3pts 2nd Qtr	3pts 3rd Qtr	3pth 4th Qtr
Ateneo	3-6 (50%)	4-9 (46%)	4-7 (57%)	2-6 (33%)
UP	4-6 (66%)	0-8	4-7 (57%)	3-6 (50%)

How did they win that despite the barrage from UP?

The Blue Eagles hit their triples when they needed it the most with huge shots coming from Matt Nieto, Tyler Tio, and Gian Mamuyac.

Ratcheting up the D especially in the fourth period.

Let’s take a look at the defensive stats of that quarter.

Team	Defensive Rebounds	Steals	Blocks	Turnovers	Pts off TOs
Ateneo	5	1	0	7	0
UP	5	4	0	3	7

And let’s compare the Big Threes of each team

Team	Fourth Quarter
Ateneo (Kouame/Nieto/Ravena)	18 points
UP (Akhuetie/Desiderio/JuGomezDeLiano)	12 points

I earlier mentioned that Nieto and Ravena carried the team. Others did their part – Anton Asistio, Raffy Verano, Tyler Tio, Mike Nieto… but Angelo Kouame, in addition to not playing well, was bothered by his “foul” on Akhuetie as the UP crowd booed him. For the third time this season (the other two were the first round losses to Adamson and FEU), he flailed around, was a step slow, and really shrunk in the face of the challenge. I will give this to him. It can be unnerving when you are booed by half the people in the arena. While I believe that experience counts, it is not the determining factor. In the moment, Kouame shrunk. But he will be better for it now that he has experienced it. For sure, he wanted to contribute and he did just enough in the fourth.

Speaking earlier of benches, UP’s sparkled earlier in the game, but come crunch time, two of the Blue Eagles bench mob remained in the game and gave a very good account of themselves. There was Tyler Tio who continued to be a UP killer (that was a huge triple he fired in the fourth) and he was steady – no turnovers in 13 minutes of action. And there was Gian Mamuyac who was matched up against Juan Gomez De Liaño. Mamu hit a key triple from the left corner pocket in the fourth and he issued a key assist that Tio converted into a triple for a 66-61 lead at the 9:21 mark. He finished with five points, four rebounds, and four assists.

I also mentioned that I believe that championship experience is a factor but NOT the overriding one. Cases in point, Ateneo defeated DLSU in the 2008 finals despite the latter being the defending champs and the former not having that finals experience save for Chris (the others didn’t play much in their previous 2006 finals stint). And there was of course, NU knocking down FEU in 2014 even if the Tamaraws had a lot of players with finals experience.

Summing it up, it came down to Ateneo’s top guns finishing off UP on both offense and defense (the free throws are a by-product of that too).

For Game Two, I wonder if UP can continue to wax hot from the outside and how both teams will adjust now to each other and I figure Kouame will play better. Can Ateneo close out the series? One thing is for sure, it will be another electric atmosphere.