Colegio de San Juan de Letran felt the loss of its key players in their rivalry clash against San Beda University.
Knights head coach Bonnie Tan admitted that losing the likes of Brent Paraiso and Louie Sangalang was a huge one in this game as they were not able to close it out in the endgame.
“Malaking factor yun, nasaktan kami and nakita naman talaga natin yung result lalo na sa mga endgame no, na hinahanap din natin sila,” said Tan after absorbing the 68-76 beatdown.
Letran was also missing the production of Brent Paraiso who is their leading scorer averaging 12.75 points together with 3.5 rebounds, 2.75 assists, and 2.5 steals per contest; and their top rebounder Louie Sangalang who is averaging 10.25 boards with 9.5 markers and 2.5 dimes per game.
Besides losing their key players, them turning the ball too much did not help either as they ended up with 19 of them.
And during the payoff period, only three Knights were able to score — all were veterans.
“That’s the sign of kulang pa sa gelling and experience yung mga rookies natin. Di ko naman sinasabi na sila nag error pero syempre chain reaction na yan, siguro walang makita yung mga veterans natin sa mga rookies natin. Di pa makapag-deliver,” said the Knights head tactician.
Coming into this game, Tan was expecting a lot from his rookies Kobe Monje and Kevin Santos. Both struggled though, only knocking down one field goal combined.
“If you see the stats ni yung [Kobe] Monje 1 out of 13 yata. Talagang ano… Di ko alam, baka lumabas yung pagka rookie niya. Tapos si [Kevin] Santos naman, yeah he played 14 minutes pero hindi na naka score eh. Pero he played good defense naman and had some good rebounds. So hopefully mabago natin,” Tan said.
“May mga rookies kasi tayo na nag-start as a role player lang, may mga rookies tayo na nagsstart as scorer. Sila kasi hindi naman ganun talagang ka offensive player. Pero eventually matutunan nila yon, nila Santos at Kobe Monje,” he continued.
Coming into this game, Monje was averaging 6.5 points and 3.5 rebounds, while Santos is putting-up 4.5 markers and 2.75 boards.
Despite playing the most minutes in this game, Monje only scored four markers while shooting 1-of-13 from the field. As per Santos, he did not even take a single attempt in this game with zero points.
The two-time champion coach, however, hoped that their rookies would take this as a learning experience going forward.
“Wala namang talo sa experience eh. So ayun palagi namin iniinstill sa mga players namin. So sana we learn from this game na kahit anong talo tayo, we keep moving forward.”
