Young Carl Tamayo has been leading University of the Philippines in the final stretch of the UAAP Season 84 Men’s Basketball Tournament’s elimination round.
In fact, the 6-foot-7 stretch big man out of Cebu has taken over as the scoring leader of the Fighting Maroons this season, averaging 14.0 points per contest over the last 11 games. His scoring norm is now 0.73 points higher than Zavier Lucero.
And the National University-Nazareth School product is also averaging 7.78 rebounds.
But the 21-year-old is still not satisfied, knowing that there is still a lot to improve on.
“Di lang naman siya dahil senior level na ako. Siguro yung improvement as a player di lang naman dito titigil kasi kahit magpunta ka ng pro may room pa rin for improvement,” said Tamayo, a 46-percent free throw shooter.
“Yung free throws ko kailangan ko lang talaga mag work on sa free throws ko, give time sa free throws ko lalo na yung dulo sobrang kailangan.”
In their Round 11 encounter against De La Salle University, Tamayo’s late free throw misses almost cost the Fighting Maroons the game.
With five seconds left and UP clinging to a 71-67 lead, Tamayo missed both of his freebies that led to an eventual Mike Phillips putback.
On the next possession, Ricci Rivero split his charities. Fortunately for UP, Mark Nonoy missed on his game-tying attempt.
“Yun lang kailangan ko pa pag-trabahuhan yung mga bagay na tulad ng free throws, marami pa ako kailangan i-improve as a player,” continued Tamayo, who still wound up with 23 points despite going just 4-of-10 from the line.
Despite the tournament being just a month old, Tamayo and the Fighting Maroons have learned a lot.
From their opening day loss to Ateneo, to their eight-game winning streak, up to their wire-to-wire defeat to Adamson, UP has learned a lot during that stretch.
And Tamayo hopes that come the last three games of the elims, they can take all those learnings and finish strong.
“Siyempre, yun lang siguro nag-learn kami, malaki yung na-learn namin wake up call sa amin yun,” he said about the loss to the Soaring Falcons. “Then tingin ko good start naman kami ngayon na game na kahit training pa lang kahapon alam na namin may tiwala naman kami sa isa’t isa tsaka sa system.
“Wake up call lang siya sa amin then maraming learnings na nakuha namin dun hindi lang siya basta talo dahil marami kaming natutunan.”
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