Far from over

There will be no stepladder situation in the UAAP men’s basketball playoffs this year. It would’ve happened if a team finishes the double-round eliminations with a perfect record. But UP’s un-beaten record was blemished by La Salle in a pulsating, highly emotional game before a big crowd at the MOA Arena last Sunday.

So the playoff format will feature No. 1 against No. 4 and No. 2 against No. 3 with the higher seeds enjoying a twice-to-beat advantage in the semifinals and the survivors clashing in the best-of-three finals. At the moment, the UAAP has yet to announce the full schedule of the second round. But the matchups to start the second round this weekend are set. On Saturday, it will be Adamson against FEU at 4 p.m. and La Salle against UE at 6 p.m. and on Sunday, it will be NU against Ateneo at 4 p.m. and UST against UP at 6 p.m. The four games will be held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. The pairings were determined by the first round finishes with No. 1 La Salle facing No. 3 UE, No. 2 UP taking on No. 4 UST, No. 5 Adamson meeting No. 7 FEU and No. 6 NU engaging No. 8 Ateneo.

If La Salle had lost to UP last Sunday, the Archers would’ve dropped to No. 3 with a rematch against the Fighting Maroons on Saturday. That’s how crucial the Sunday game was for La Salle – it was either a No. 1 or No. 3 finish.

The race to the Final Four is clearly far from over. La Salle and UP are tied with identical 6-1 records. UE got off to a 0-2 start but has rebounded to win five in a row. UST isn’t far behind at 4-3. Adamson is knocking on the Final Four door with a 3-4 mark and would’ve tied UST in the standings if UE hadn’t pulled off a miracle squeaker at the buzzer to win, 63-62, last Sunday. NU is nursing a 2-5 mark, struggling without a foreign student athlete as Mo Diassana went down with a knee injury in the Bulldogs’ first game. FEU and Ateneo are at the bottom with 1-6 slates. Both, however, are capable of launching a comeback with seven games to play in the second round.

Although La Salle is the defending champion, the consensus is UP has the tools and pieces to go all the way as the UAAP’s host school. Bringing in Quentin Millora-Brown was a huge boost. QMB, 24, is a 6-10 Fil-Am center who played in five US NCAA D1 seasons over six years in college. He began his NCAA journey as a freshman at Rice University in Houston in 2018-19, redshirted as a sophomore at Vanderbilt in Tennessee, played three years with the Commodores varsity then enrolled in a Master’s program at The Citadel, a military school in South Carolina in 2023-24.

UE is the hottest team in the UAAP and ranks No. 1 in three-point percentage at .327. UST is No. 1 in perimeter points at 31.0. UE and UST didn’t make the Final Four last season so if they con-tinue their surge, it’ll be a major turnaround. UE finished at 4-10 and UST 2-12 last season so right now, they’ve already surpassed their win totals. UP is No. 1 in field goal percentage at .424, fastbreak points at 11.6, turnover points at 17.1, points in the paint at 34.9 and bench points at 47.9 while La Salle is No. 1 in offense at 75.6, assists at 21.1, rebounds at 50.7, second chance points at 13.6 and steals at 8.1.

No team is invincible. La Salle lost to UE but burst UP’s bubble although the Maroons played without star point guard JD Cagulangan. If the battle between La Salle and UP is an indication, ac-tion is expected to be extremely heated in the second round.