Stunned Tams vow to play like hell

MANILA, Philippines - The Far Eastern U Tams locked themselves up inside their dugout for over two hours immediately after their harrowing 49-72 setback to Ateneo, assessing what went wrong in Saturday’s UAAP men’s basketball finals opener.

The consensus? They got on a self-destruct mode, came in too soft and passive against a well-oiled Ateneo squad that was a lot tougher and aggressive in the blowout that became the most lopsided finals game since FEU’s 47-72 loss to La Salle in 1998.

“I can’t really comprehend what happened to the boys, they were awe-struck, this being their first time in the finals. I feel like we just self-destructed out there and then Ateneo played well, banking on its championship experience,” a dejected FEU coach Glen Capacio said in Filipino after the gloomy Tams finally came out of their prolonged post-game huddle.

Capacio said his wards rushed their offensive attacks instead of going through their tested team system, leading to either misses or turnovers that the Blue Eagles parlayed into fastbreak points, which actually broke the game wide open right in the first quarter.

“In the first quarter alone, they (Eagles) scored 13 points off the break, so that was the story there. We were down 8-26 and the game was essentially over by then,” Capacio said, adding that his crew lacked the discipline in defense and couldn’t match Ateneo’s huge efforts on the hardwood.

“The boys showed about 50 percent of their usual effort; we lost in every department, like assists (9-18), rebounds (40-46). We were truly outplayed and what can I say, Ateneo was really good,” added Capacio, hurting from his worst beating as coach.

After an apparent dressing-down from team officials, the FEU players appeared eager to make up for their forgettable showing when they play Game 2 on Thursday.

“As the management and coaching staff said, we’re like gays playing in the court in Game 1. But we will prove to them that we’re not,” said skipper Jens Knuttel.

Ace guard RR Garcia, the league’s top gunner, who was held down to 11 points on a 4-of-9 shooting in Game 1, said the Tams have a pretty good idea what to do next time.

“We lacked the effort but we’ve already talked about what’s needed to be done. We have to double our efforts and follow everything that the coaching staff tells us, like being more patient on offense,” said Garcia, admitting jitters in playing in front of 16,384 fans for the first time. “We felt tremendous pressure but hopefully we learned something from Game 1.”

And coming off a bad loss, expect FEU’s next four practices to be “hellish.”

“It’s going to be like hell, that’s the only way,” said FEU athletic director Mark Molina. “If we come back on Thursday with the same kind of attitude, we’ll just get the same result. It may well be over by the first half so probably we’ll panic and change entirely what we’ll do. And we have to be tougher.”