Archers overachieve in comeback season

MANILA, Philippines - There’s more to playing the game than just winning and while capturing the UAAP senior men’s basketball championship is the ultimate goal, La Salle coach Gee Abanilla said yesterday he can’t complain about how the Green Archers overachieved this season.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate our performance a 7 or 8,” said Abanilla. “Our objective was to make it back to the Final 4 and we did it. I just felt we could’ve done more. Unfortunately, we fell short in the playoffs. But I’m happy with the development of our players. Our guys played with more confidence as the season progressed, trusting themselves and each other. We owe a lot to Ambassador Danding Cojuangco for his presence and support in unifying the Lasallian community behind us.”

The jury was out on La Salle before the season began as the Archers were riddled with question marks. How could they return to the Final 4 with four rookies, team leader L.A. Revilla with a diabetic condition and a brand-new coaching staff? How could they match up against teams with imports? Last campaign, La Salle wound up with a 5-9 record and out of the playoffs – how could this team improve with Sam Marata gone from the lineup?

Slowly, the Archers made believers out of skeptics. They finished the double-round eliminations with a 9-5 mark, beating every team in the league at least once except archrival Ateneo. La Salle led the league in defense and rebounding, stamping its class as a rising contender. In a knockout game to decide the last qualifier for the Final 4, the Archers upset FEU, 69-66, fueled by a 17-0 run in the fourth period. 

La Salle’s season ended with a 66-63 loss to Ateneo last Saturday. If the Archers won, they would’ve played the Blue Eagles last Wednesday in a knockout game for a slot in the Finals. La Salle’s inexperience showed as the Archers blew an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter and couldn’t hold off Kiefer Ravena’s late rampage. Ryan Buenafe’s triple was the killer that put Ateneo back on top, 64-63, as La Salle failed to convert in its final possession with three seconds left. Buenafe closed out the scoring with two free throws.

“Our objective of being in the Final 4 was severely tested,” said Terry Capistrano, one of three La Salle managers with Raffy Villavicencio and Eric Ongkauko. “The team did well in gradually adjusting to each other and everything else. Towards the latter part of the season, our maturity level was much better. Desire level was also high. We still have to work on some technical aspects of our game. At this point, the team has already defined itself as a very defense-oriented team. Perhaps, we can now move up a step and that is to improve our offensive capabilities.”

Villavicencio said La Salle’s showing was a big accomplishment. “We achieved our goal of making it back to the Final 4 and we nearly forced Ateneo into a second playoff game,” he said. “The guys played hard and gave it their all. We lost to Ateneo in the playoffs because of breaks. We couldn’t have gone this far without Mr. Cojuangco who gave us the passion and energy to overachieve.”

Abanilla said the coaches and managers will confer this week to decide on plans for the PCCL, UniGames in Bacolod and possibly, the PBA D-League. “We’ll play our UAAP lineup in the PCCL but maybe, we won’t play our graduating players Josh (Webb) and Jovet (Mendoza) to give guys like Gabby (Reyes), Ponzo (Gotladera) and Papot (Paredes) a chance,” said Abanilla. “We don’t usually join the UniGames so the players can catch up on their studies and in the D-League, we won’t be able to use our rookies because you need two years in the UAAP before clearance to play.”

Abanilla said the challenge is to get better next season. “As Br. Bernie told us in the dugout after the game last Saturday, the next season begins tomorrow,” said Abanilla. “Yutien (Andrada) will be playing his last year but the others will stay on. We’ve also got Martin Reyes and Aiki Herrera along with guys like Jason Perkins, Yanqui Haruna, Axel Torres and Rob Ricafort who are in residence. We’ll also be recruiting from high school.”

Abanilla said in the offseason, he hopes to upgrade his wing corps. “We’ll work on improving our defense and offense at the wings, that means Jeron (Teng), Gabby and Oda (Tampus),” he continued. “We’ll develop combo guards like Almond (Vosotros) and Mac-Mac Tallo. As for our bigs, Arnold (Van Opstal) has improved a lot, exerting every effort to get better and Norbert (Torres) was peaking at the end of the season, embracing his role which is key to our progress. Ponzo got limited minutes but I can see his improvement at practice.”

Abanilla gave credit to his staff for the hard work that paid off – Juno Sauler as first assistant, Jun Limpot for focusing on the bigs, Mac Cuan for working on the guards and Joe Ward as skills and conditioning coach. “I told the guys before the season, we would commit to being the hardest working team in the league,” said Abanilla. “They played their hearts out. You couldn’t ask anything more. We’re proud of them.”