That’s one step back.
Though still assured of at least playoff, the De La Salle University Green Archers ended their elimination round campaign with a two-game losing streak. Moreover, their Final Four security highly depends on the result of the Adamson Soaring Falcons-FEU Tamaraws tilt on Sunday.
Of course, the Green Archers will be cheering for the Soaring Falcons during that game. Who would want to face the battle-tested Tamaraws in a sudden-death game?
In the meantime, Louie Gonzalez and his staff will have a lot of things to review. The main objective is to find what went wrong during their crushing losses to the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the UP Fighting Maroons, which happened in a span of just four days.
“Babalik muna ako sa table. Titignan ko ano ba nangyari sa last two games namin, at nagiging problema compared dun sa previous games namin na we were doing everything right,” the first-year Green Archers head coach admitted.
“Kahit na wala kaming import, nagko-compete yung team ko. Dapat ngayong may import na ako, dapat mas lumakas. ‘Di ko alam kung ano nangyayari.”
The “import” he is referring to is former New Zealand youth team player Taane Samuel.
Before Samuel returned from an 11-game absence, the Green Archers’ defense was only allowing 68.6 points per game (second best in the league). The big man rotation of Justine Baltazar, Santi Santillan, and Brandon Bates did an excellent job of protecting the paint.
It seems that having the 6-foot-9 Samuel back complicated things, as La Salle allowed Ateneo and UP to score an average of 84.0 points per game – a whopping 15.4-point increase.
For his part, Samuel was a plus-3 when he was on the floor against Ateneo, but ended up just a minus-8 against UP. He averaged 8.0 points and 2.5 rebounds in 16.5 minutes of game time in those two games.
“It really takes time eh. Siyempre, Taane, ‘di pa rin namin na-establish saan yung best spot niya eh. Even the combination kung sino kasabay niya maglaro. Dalawang laro pa lang and we’re still figuring things out,” shared Gonzalez, as they only had a chance to play with Samuel for five minutes prior to last Sunday.
“Parang bumalik ulit kami dun sa letter A eh.
“Really back-to-basics with the rotation and the field kasi before alam na nila lahat eh. Kahit malapit na kami sa point na turo na lang ako nang turo, alam na nila gagawin nila eh,” added Gonzalez, who has been with La Salle for the last three years.
Gonzales’ dilemma now is to either sit out Samuel or stick with him. And that’s the question he is asking his team as well.
“I’ll sit down with my team. I’m gonna talk to them tapos tatanungin ko sila kasi importante yung input nila eh.
“Sa akin kasi, binibigyan ko lagi ng importansya yung input ng players ko. Kung ano yung nararamdaman nila, kung ano yung feel nila sa amin, kung ano yung feel nila sa rotation, dun sa mga ginagawa namin. Then I’ll figure it out,” he shared.
“I know if that’s the case, if I need na hatakin muna nang konti si Taane for us to get better, wala namang problema rin kay Taane yun. He knows kung nasaan siya ngayon,” he closed.
Hopefully, it leads to two steps forward for him and the Green Archers.
