One Day Later: CSJL vs CSB, EAC vs MIT

Tower of power - Jonathan Belorio proved difficult to cover down low (pic source)

CSJL 112 - CSB 91
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Player of the Game : 6'4 Jam Cortes continues to play bigger than his height, finishing with another double-double, 19 points and 12 rebounds, plus 3 assists, his third in five games. Coach Louie Alas has been getting a ton of production from his trio of bigs, Cortes, Jonathan Belorio and Raymond Almazan, this season. They're probably a tier lower than the big men of San Beda or San Sebastian, but third-best in a league of ten is not something to sniff about.

CSJL Stat to Watch : The Letran Knights went out and dominated the glass, more than doubling Benilde's output, 53-25. They also murdered them on offensive rebounds, getting 28 to just 8 by the Blazers, allowing them to put up 16 second chance points, with Benilde finishing with a big fat zero.
CSJL Player to Watch : See above, for more of Jam Cortes.

CSB Stat to Watch : Benilde turned the ball over just 19 times, a relatively small amount considering Letran's defense, and the high-scoring nature of the game. Alas said after the game that he felt the Blazers had done a good job scouting, always aware of where the open guy was for the pass when the double came, but Letran was still able to finish with a 17-10 turnover point advantage, so it wasn't an impeccable performance in that regard.
CSB Player to Watch : Tim McCoy couldn't handle the Letran bigs, actually none of the Benilde big men could, but McCoy in particular was horrible, he finished with just 3 points on 1 of 4 shooting, 1 of 4 from the stripe, plus no rebounds, 3 turnovers and 4 fouls.

Other Stats: 

• Jonathan Grey finished the game as the Blazers' leading scorer. He had 23 points on 8 of 8 shooting from the field, and missed 1 free throw to go 7 of 8 from the line.
• The Knights out-assisted Benilde 25 to 17, doing a better job of finding the open man, especially on the break. 
• A 32-21 fourth quarter turned out to be Benilde's downfall. Entering the fourth quarter they were down just 10, 80-70, but couldn't put together any offense late. Part of that is on Del Rosario's head, for taking too long to reinsert Carlo Lastimosa, riding out his bench a bit too long.

Down but not out, the Cardinals finally get win #1 (pic source)

MIT 80 - EAC 63
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Player of the Game : Kenneth Ighalo's hustle really helped the Cardinals in this game. The most athletic player on the Mapua line-up finished with 9 points on 4 of 6 shooting, and added 9 rebounds, 5 on the offensive end.

EAC Stat to Watch : After holding Lyceum to a dreadful 1 of 22 outing from beyond the arc, the Generals got killed from outside, allowing 9 of 20 triples, or 45% shooting. Part of the reason why the Cardinals got so open was a need for EAC to constantly doubleteam the big man down low, due to the suspension of Claude Cubo.
EAC Player to Watch : Jolas Paguia finished with 11 points on 4 of 10 shooting, 3 of 6 from downtown, and 4 rebounds. You'd like to see him mix it up a bit more, instead of just hovering around the perimeter taking threes. In particular, he had no free throws in this game, and made only 1 of 4 two-pointers.

MIT Stat to Watch : For the first time in five games, the Cardinals outscored a team in the fourth quarter, finishing 16-12. A 9-0 run to start the fourth certainly helped, as did a Generals team that couldn't hit the broadside of a barn until there was 3-plus minutes remaining in the quarter.
MIT Player to Watch : Josan Nimes finished with 15 points, 4 of 11 field goal shooting, 2 of 4 from downtown. He also chipped in 5 rebounds and 2 assists, and spread out his scoring among the four quarters. He hit a big triple as part of that 9-0 blast in the fourth that really put Mapua ahead too.

Other Stats:

• The Cardinals had a huge advantage at the foul line, taking 27 trips and making 17 charities, while the Generals were had just 6 attempts and 4 makes.
• EAC also committed 23 turnovers, most of them unforced. Luckily, Mapua isn't much of a running team, and so didn't take much advantage of it. In fact, despite having just 13 turnovers, 10 less than EAC, Mapua finished with the same amount of turnover points, 11.

NCAA Picking Record: 16-9