Francis Lopez made the most out of his first finals appearance for University of the Philippines in the UAAP Season 86 Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The 20-year-old presumptive Rookie of the Year produced 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Fighting Maroons in their dominant 97-67 Game One win over the De La Salle Green Archers.
Despite his fine performance and UP’s incredible win, the 6-foot-6 Filipino-Nigerian winger is fully focused on finishing the job this Sunday.
“Our mindset is that it’s just another game. We were just happy that we got the win. We really fought hard for this one,” he said.
“We’ve been practicing for so long and we’re glad that we got the outcome that we wanted. Like I said before, our mission is to get two wins. Now, we got the first win and we just got one more win to go.”
The Fighting Maroons were utterly dominant against the Green Archers. UP produced 24 turnover points off La Salle’s 18 turnovers.
The Fighting Maroons also made 12 steals, got 55 rebounds, and scored 15 second-chance points. In contrast, the Green Archers had four, 45, and six respectively in those three categories.
For Lopez, these numbers sum up how much UP wanted to win.
“It’s the Finals obviously so we gotta fight hard on the boards. They got the big guys as well there but I think we were hungrier,” he stressed.
“We’re glad that we got this win and we’re just gonna focus more on the next one.”
