The College of Saint Benilde Blazers are off to their worst start in four years.
After a promising start, having dropped a close game to the heavily-favored San Sebastian Stags to open the season, the Blazers have been routed by their opponents left and right. Currently, the Benilde offense is dead last in the league, producing a paltry average of 57.6 points per game. The defense is not faring as well, allowing 72.8 points from their opponents – a league-high 15.2 difference.
The obstacle that coach Gabby Velasco and the Blazers face is finding the right blend, the right combination that can get them through the season.
“It’s like this. We are expecting other guys to step-up. We are expecting people to get certain minutes, people will get less minutes, things like those,” Velasco reflected.
“Unfortunately, it did not happen in the very beginning.”
Five games in, the squad’s coaching staff has frantically been looking for the right combination of starters and second-stringers. Out of the 15 players on their roster, all but three Blazers have had an opportunity to start. Minutes-wise, the spread has been erratic, with JJ Domingo playing the most – just 23.6 minutes per outing.
JJ Domingo is the leading scorer of the Blazers with 9.8 points
“Up to now, our problem is we still need to find the right combination and find the people who will step-up consistently,” Velasco shared.
“We thought JJ Domingo was already there but unfortunately today, although he got a lot of minutes, he had a lot of turnovers and the scoring was not there,” Velasco said about Domingo’s poor eight-turnover game against San Beda.
“Today naman Clement [Letcheu] was the one who stepped up pero nung past games wala yun. So talagang struggle yung team dahil hindi naman mahanap yung tamang combinasyon at hindi sabay sabay nag-stestep up.”
“May isa, may dalawa, may panibago. Hindi consistent. So it’s hard, it’s really hard.”
Even with a 0-5 predicament, Velasco remains patient and vigilant. “I just hope that as we go along, magmamature din kami. We have to be mature quick even though we are young,” he expressed with optimism.
“Hopefully, we still remain positive. We need to leave everything behind, learn from it, and then apply whatever we learned from the past to our next game.”
