Looking at the opening weekend by UAAP rookies

Every year, when the new UAAP men’s basketball season gets underway, one of the keenly awaited developments is the performance of the rookies.

There are a lot of heralded rookies in this batch and we wanted to track their opening day performances.

Here’s how the notable rookies fared.

Of the 13 rookies, the best showings were from Adamson’s Ivan Villanueva, NU’s Rev Diputado, and Ateneo’s Arvin Tolentino.

Villanueva, playing the three and four spot in particular, had a well-rounded performance where he nearly tabulated a double double performance. Could it be we found the heir to Jericho Cruz who will be taking his high wire act to the pros?

Diputado on the other hand, didn’t shoot too much but did well enough. He did a lot of the other chores too.

As for Tolentino, obviously, he isn’t a five, but is more of a three. He likes to take his man outside where he can beat him off the dribble or shoot over him. As a result, didn’t pull down a rebound which should be some cause for concern since they will need all hands on deck in rebounding especially against teams like La Salle, UST, UE, NU and FEU. Not a good shooting day but will definitely help out.

We expect other rookies to contribute heavily from UP’s Diego Dario to UST’s Henri Subido to La Salle’s Prince Rivero. Ateneo has a lot of rookies who will eventually do well. But it would be interesting to see what guys like Jay Javelosa and John Apacible can do with longer minutes.

This weekend should be interesting as some teams will try to put some distance over the others while others hope to barge into the win column. The rookies’ baptism of fire isn’t over. As the first round goes on, we’re going to see more or less the rotation of players.