For a moment in the first round of this UAAP Season 89 Men’s Basketball Tournament, the UST Growling Tigers appeared on their way to unraveling. The Adamson Soaring Falcons blew them out, and then the NU Bulldogs beat them at the very last second. At that point, UST fell to 2-3 and looked nothing like the budding contenders some expected the team to be.
Then came the turnaround. The Growling Tigers stunned erstwhile sole leader FEU Tamaraws, 81-69, powered by separate 16-0 and 12-0 runs in the second half. UST next blew out the Ateneo Blue Eagles on Saturday thanks to a blistering 23-0 run bridging the end of the first half and the first five minutes of the third quarter.
Just like that, the UST Growling Tigers are back in Final Four contention.
Growling Tigers Stuck Together
Assistant coach Japs Cuan, himself a former UST player, isn’t surprised that UST has bounced back so strongly, and he credits the Growling Tigers sticking together through adversity as a big reason for this reversal of fortunes.
“What’s special about this group is ’yung togetherness nila,” he said after UST’s second straight win and fourth in the tournament. “We had two games, ’yung from Adamson loss na blowout and then a heartbreak loss against NU. Usually teams fold na ’pag ganoon eh, but nakita ko sa kanila na they really want to win. They really want to prove, and then they stick together lang with each other.”
Vets Leading the Way, Others Stepping Up
Indeed, the Growling Tigers could’ve folded. Only they didn’t. Not under the watch of team leaders Amiel Acido and Mark Llemit, whom Cuan credited for stepping up and helping UST navigate adversity. And certainly now with multiple players stepping up.
“We just stick to the system and we stay ready lang kasi on a given game, minsan malas ’yung isa, but ang maganda lang sa team namin, someone is stepping up. So ang maganda lang din ’yung leadership ng dalawa na kasama ko today [Acido and Llemit],” Cuan further said.
True enough, Acido and Llemit have been constants, with the former putting up 13.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 2.5 assists in those two wins and the latter contributing 16.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 3.0 assists. Unsung heroes also stepped up, with Andrew Chio, for example, firing a personal-best 14 in the win over FEU and Koji Buenaflor playing his best game in a while in the victory against Ateneo.
UST Gets More Reinforcement
With a 4-3 record, the Growling Tigers find themselves in serious contention to potentially nab one of the two twice-to-beat incentives in the Final Four. And the best part for UST is that it gets to pursue that goal with one of its best players, Gelo Crisostomo, back in the mix. The sweet-shooting Crisostomo injured his knee in a win over the La Salle Green Archers and has not played since.
He is expected to be back in the second round, and he could be another big-time weapon for the seemingly peaking Growling Tigers.
