One Day Later: DLSU vs UP, UE vs ADMU

DLSU 79 - UP 67
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Feed it to the bigs - Arnold Van Opstal and Yutien Andrada had an easy time inside against UP (pic source)

Player of the Game : Yutien Andrada bounced back from an injury that forced him to miss the Ateneo-La Salle game by chipping in 11 points on 5/8 shooting, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, a block and a steal. The gangly looking big man seemed to be everywhere on the court, using his wingspan to affect shots and even nailing an open jumper or two. Of La Salle's big men, Andrada strikes the balance between height and ability, and he should (should!) see more minutes in the succeeding games of the Archers.

DLSU Stat to Watch : A more cohesive starting five, more opportunities to run, and less turnovers, all factors that led to more assists for the Archers, who tallied 25 after averaging just 13 in their first two games.
DLSU Player to Watch : Moved to the bench in favor of Maui Villanueva, Norbert Torres still struggled in his 19 minutes, scoring just 4 points on 2 of 6 shooting with 4 turnovers. On the bright side, he did pull down 9 rebounds, 4 on the offensive end, and his two scores came from going down into the post, instead of hanging around the perimeter taking bad shots.

UP Stat to Watch : The Fighting Maroons managed to squeeze out 4 more fastbreak points than the Archers, with 16 points on 14 attempts. Unfortunately, a lot of these came in the fourth quarter, when the game was pretty much out of reach. The number of points might have been higher too, had it not been for a couple of botched layups by Maroon guards.
UP Player to Watch : Mike Silungan started the game well, attacking the rim in transition, scoring 8 in the first quarter, and 13 by the first half. But in the second half, with the Archers' defense tightening up, Silungan was forced to the perimeter where his shots weren't going in. It wasn't until the fourth quarter when he finally nailed another bucket, just his second triple of the game, but that was it for him. He did finish with 5 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal and 2 blocks though.

Other Stats:

• UP actually managed to stick with DLSU in a lot of the statistics, save for two very important ones. The first is free throw shooting. DLSU apparently learned from their mistakes in the summer league and shot a superb 17 of 21 from the line. UP on the other hand, was a miserable 7 of 20 on freebies.
• The second key stat that did the Maroons in was rebounding. La Salle nearly doubled the boards of UP, getting 61 rebounds to 33 by UP. On the offensive glass, DLSU exactly doubled what the Maroons had, 26 to 13. Amazingly though, the Archers were only able to get a 1 point advantage in second chance points over UP, but more possessions meant less opportunities for UP to cut into the lead, even if the Archers weren't scoring as much. 
• Mike Gamboa has struggled in the last two games, averaging just 6 points on 33% shooting, 2.5 rebounds and 3 assists. He's also made just a single triple in his last seven attempts, allowing defenses to gang up on Silungan.

Sticky play in the initial 20 minutes of the game had UE smelling upset, but it wasn't meant to be (pic source)

ADMU 73 - UE 61
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Player of the Game : Against the undersized UE Red Warriors, Greg Slaughter went right at the rim in the second half, and finished with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds, plus 2 rejections. Coach Norman Black got on his case at halftime for taking too many jump shots, and the big man made the adjustment, getting into the low post, and drawing lots of contact, slapping fouls on to guys like Chris Javier, RR De Leon and Adrian Santos, forcing UE to field in even smaller guys.

UE Stat to Watch : For all of UE's lack of ceiling, a combination of good box out techniques, leaping ability, and plain old hustle allows the Red Warriors to hang with the taller teams in that stat. Such was the case again yesterday, as UE finished with 4 more rebounds than Ateneo, 44-40, with just 1 less offensive rebound, 14-13, than the team with a seven footer. Both teams also finished with just 6 second chance points off those offensive rebounds.
UE Player to Watch : Chris Javier was able to get in a few flashes of brilliance while struggling to guard Greg Slaughter. Finishing with 9 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists, the former San Beda Red Cub showed off a perimeter jumper that could be a nice weapon if he gets it off more consistently, and a move or so in the paint.

ADMU Stat to Watch : Ateneo played to its norms yesterday, scoring 73 points, its average after three games, and holding UE to 61 points, again, its average after three games. The higher scoring the game, the better it is for Ateneo, and for a while there, it seemed like UE was going to turn this into a 50-point grind after the second quarter, but the Eagles found their groove late behind clutch play from their veterans in the fourth quarter.
ADMU Player to Watch : See the player of the game

Other Stats: 

• Another game, another new line-up for UE, their fourth in as many games. This one had problems putting points on the board as well, scoring just 19 points while the bench, led by Paul Zamar and John Noble, scored 42. In contrast, Ateneo's starters had 52, to just 14 from their reserves.
• Ateneo was horrible from everywhere but inside. They were just 4/31 from the perimeter, 1 of 17 from downtown. 
• The Eagles made double the number of free throw attempts UE got. The Red Warriors finished 7 of 11 on charities, while Ateneo scored 22 of 32 from that same place.

UAAP Picking Record: 9-3