After sliding past most of the UAAP Season 80 Men’s Basketball tournament, the Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles are suddenly caught in an impasse.
Just last weekend, the Blue Eagles had been en route to an outright Finals berth, holding a 13-0 record.
Now, after a loss to archrivals DLSU Green Archers last Sunday followed by a shocking defeat to the Far Eastern University Tamaraws in their fist match of the Final Four, Ateneo are on the brink of elimination and look lost for the first time in a long while.
Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin concedes that his Blue Eagles have not been in this territory in a long time. He says that the Blue Eagles were uncharacteristically young against the Tamaraws.
“Out there, late in the second half when I knew we weren’t gonna come back and win that game, I was thinking to myself, ‘Gosh! I haven’t been in this mode of thinking in a long time. You know, over a year. And for our players, probably, the same thing,” shared the American-Kiwi tactician, who is in his second year with the Blue Eagles.
In order to combat this unusual feeling for him and the Blue Eagles, Baldwin believes that the first step is to face it upfront and accept the predicament that they are in.
“We have to accept the humility of the scenario, we have to get back to understanding what we do well, and sort of rediscover who we are.
“It’s there, there’s no question that it’s still there. But today I thought we played like a young team, and we shouldn’t. Yes, there’s youth there, but we’ve been together long enough and we shouldn’t play like a young team. We have to figure it out,” the former SMART Gilas Pilipinas mentor added.
For now, Baldwin wants to get his team back to the gym to work on regaining the mental edge that they’ve touted all season.
“Forget the regular season, whatever it means. This is playoff basketball, and they were sharper on both ends. I have to figure out why we weren’t.”
