LA SALLE DOMINATES TIGERS ANEW, NOTCHES 11TH STRAIGHT WIN
By Maxine Louise Lagman
23 October 2016
THE De La Salle University stays undefeated in the UAAP Basketball tournament as they swept their 11th straight win after beating the University of Santo Tomas, 99-56 on Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
It was a tight first ten minutes of the game as the Growling Tigers showed their grit and made it close to a 19-15 run against DLSU. However, UST Coach Boy Sablan became furious of two calls that he thought was a miscall and deeply affected the Tigers’ momentum in the game.
By the second period, the Green Archers made their way to put UST behind and drove the match to a 26-8 run and pulled away completely, 45-23 halftime lead.
In the second half, DLSU continued their ‘mayhem’ basketball against the Tigers. DLSU Coach Aldin Ayo even experimented late in the fourth period of the game as he put an “all-black” line-up with Ben Mbala, Abu Tratter, Jason Perkins, Julian Sargent and Mark Dyke inside the court.
It was the first time for the five players to play together, but their collective effort was great that they led the game, 93-47, with just over two minutes remaining and capped off a sweet victory.
DLSU’s 46-point lead is the biggest lead in the season so far, as it surpasses the 38-point deficit against UST as well in the first round of the tournament and it is the league’s first 40-point victory since 2011. The game is the Tigers’ worst loss since Imperium handled the statistics in 2003.
DLSU now officially secured a twice-to-beat advantage in the final four and they could still claim an automatic berth in the finals if they would be able to sweep its last three remaining games in the elimination round of the tournament.
Mbala dropped a double-double for DLSU, 21 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks. Jeron Teng added 16 points, four rebounds and three assists while Justine Baltazar contributed 10 markers and 12 boards.
UST dropped to a 3-8 record despite Louie Vigil’s 18 points and seven boards.
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