Winning a basketball game will always come down to the team that scored more points and made more shots than the other. Usually, when one team is knocking down shots like a hot knife slicing through thick butter, they have higher chances of winning.
But last September 30, the knife couldn’t slice through the butter as the De La Salle Green Archers fell prey to the torrid shooting performance of the University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers, 77-61, at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
For the game, La Salle simply couldn’t take the lid off the basket and counter the opposition’s shooting performance as they shot 6/27 (22 percent) from the three-point line and 15/36 (46 percent) on two-pointers. In addition, free throws once again became a troubling concern for the Taft-based squad as they only made 13 out of 29 attempts (45 percent).
“UST started making their threes and we didn’t score. Our free throw percentage at end of the game was even lower than their three point percentage,” DLSU head coach Juno Sauler said. “It’s impossible for a team to win if your free throws are worse than the opposing team’s three point shooting.”
Taking a look at the numbers, UST had a field day from beyond the arc and the charity stripe. The team shot a combined 45 percent from outside (making 11/24 attempts in the process) and they knocked down 12/20 free throw attempts (60 percent).
Moreover, Kevin Ferrer once against led the Tigers, despite seeing only 16 minutes of action due to foul trouble, with 17 points, including 5 triples, 6 rebounds and 1 steal. In addition, veterans Karim Abdul and Ed Daquioag followed up with a combined effort 24 points, 19 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks. Kyle Suarez was also a big surprise after he finished the game with 9 points, all coming from three-pointers.
“Suarez did good, Ferrer did good, Coach Bong [Dela Cruz] did good.” Sauler added. “There are some [shots] that were contested but they were able to make [some of it]. That is basketball, [they made] shots and La Salle couldn’t make shots, free throws, and that is the bottom line.”
In basketball, any team would always have a game wherein nothing goes their way. By merely watching the game, La Salle, showed signs of fatigue after a fast-paced game against the University of the East Red Warriors in it’s game prior, could not get anything going after an impressive surge in the opening parts of the game. It was very uncharacteristic of them missing all of those wide-open layups, losing their grip on the ball after a rebound and so on.
Also, La Salle’s main guns had an off-day against a very hot opponent. Jeron Teng finished with 13 points and 9 rebounds while rookie sensation Andrei Caracut only had 5 points and 2 assists. In addition, Joshua Torralba 12 points and 4 rebounds.
“It’s hard to win when you shoot 22 percent from the three and 45 percent from the free throw line,” Sauler remarked. “So the bottom line is, we just have to make the shots that are available. We just have to find a way to get those shots in.”
