Falcons, Tams face first round tormentors

MANILA, Philippines - Adamson is living up to its pre-tournament billing in UAAP Season 74 men’s basketball tournament, consistently perched in its position in the upper rungs of the team standings.

“We haven’t achieved anything yet and there’s still a lot of work to be done,” said AdU coach Leo Austria, whose wards have won their last three outings for a second-best 6-2 win-loss slate.

And work double time the Falcons must today at 3 p.m. when they take on the National U Bulldogs (3-5), the only team other than unbeaten leader Ateneo to put a stain on their record (63-56 last July 31). The Bulldogs have also bared teeth in their merciless 91-51 demolition of UE last week.

“NU is very confident coming from that massacre (of UE). Their morale is also at a high because they beat us the last time around. So we have to prepare twice as hard against them,” said Austria.

Bulldogs coach Eric Altamirano’s young crew, led by Bobby Ray Parks Jr. and Emmanuel Mbe, has started off the second round on a blazing note, bent on making up for a rather disappointing 2-5 performance in the initial phase.

“Our mindset in the second round is to play it one game at a time. We don’t want to think about the Final Four yet because such kind of outlook gave the boys a lot of pressure when we started the season,” said Altamirano.

“These are young boys and we didn’t handle it well in the first round. Now we’re just taking it one game, trying to improve, especially on defense and rebounding and we’ll see from there,” he added.

Far Eastern University (4-4), another prohibitive favorite in the pre-season but is experiencing a struggle, aims to get back on track against upset-conscious University of the Philippines (2-6) in the 1 p.m. curtain-raiser.

The Tams share third spot with idle DLSU and UST while the Maroons are lurking just one notch above the tailend but don’t be deceived by the disparity in the standings.

The first time they met on Aug. 14, State U hacked out a shocking 76-63 reversal, a setback that actually started off FEU’s current three-game skid.