Coach Paul Ramos wants University of the Philippines to start from scratch after suffering back-to-back defeats in the UAAP Season 86 Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Momentum has deserted UP after its 6-0 start to the campaign. The Fighting Maroons’ losses at the hands of neighbors Ateneo de Manila University and competitors University of Santo Tomas have dampened their season.
Now, it’s back to the drawing board.
“They outhustled us. That’s basically it. We were outhustled, and they played better during the clutch,” said Ramos after his team’s 72-74 loss to the Growling Tigresses on Wednesday.
“The last few possessions, I felt that we were not able to execute the shots that we wanted. We were lucky that there were some lucky baskets, lucky 50/50 balls, and then we got some open shots, kaya nakadikit,” he continued.
“Our rebounds really weren’t there. All shots we had to make them because, if we missed, nasa kanila yung bola. Compared to them, the shooters had confidence all day to take the shots because every time they had second to third chances.”
Things did not start to go well for UP even before the game.
Fighting Maroons captain Justine Domingo did not suit up due to an injury sustained from the Ateneo game.
In the first round, Domingo averaged 8.0 points, 4.86 rebounds, 2.43 assists, and 2.71 steals.
To make matters worse, Nigerian center Favour Onoh already had three fouls at the end of the first half. Onoh only produced four points and nine rebounds in 20 minutes of action.
She eventually fouled out with less than 34 seconds remaining in the game, with UP down 67-71.
For Ramos, all of these things played a factor in UP’s loss to UST.
“Favour plays a key role in our rotation and our performance,” he said. “It’s really unfortunate (that) she always gets early fouls. Every day during practice, we already teach her how to defend properly, and yet, for some reason, they’re still calling some ticky-tac fouls on her.
“But again, breaks of the game. They feel that it’s a foul, so we’ll stick with that. We’ll live with that. We just have to bounce back. We need to learn how to play even if Favour is not inside,” the youthful head coach continued.
“As you noticed, our team captain (Justine Domingo) is not playing. Unfortunately, she injured her ankle in the last game. It’s a severe one. We’re hoping that the MRI result can give us positives. Hopefully, sooner, she’ll be back.”
All is not lost for UP after the two dispiriting defeats. The Fighting Maroons are in the thick of the Final Four race. UP last made the postseason back in Season 71, which was also its last finals appearance.
With six more elimination round assignments to go, the Fighting Maroons need to just get back to winning ways to set things right.
“First, we need to forget about the first round already,” said Ramos. “All teams are getting better. Against Adamson University, we just need to study the film of the first round but expect that Adamson can still play hard against us.
“If we’re gonna get outrebounded again, we’ll have a hard time putting ourselves in a position to win. We need to get better at blocking out. We need to get better when Favour is not inside,” he added.
“We need to get better and expect that Justine won’t be able to play. Those are the situations that we’re trying to live with day by day.”
