The De La Salle University Green Archers are still alive. The Taft-based squad flexed their difference in size and took advantage of a foul-plagued University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers team, winning 77-70, Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, to force a winner-take-all game three in the Finals of UAAP Season 76.
UST won a squeaker in game one, 73-72, but La Salle evened the best-of-three series thanks to inspired play by their big men trio of Jason Perkins, Arnold Van Opstal and Norbert Torres, plus forward Jeron Teng.
It augurs well for the Archers, as in 1999, DLSU came back from a 0-1 deficit versus UST to claim a UAAP championship.
Jeron Teng top-scored for his team with 19 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals. Norbert Torres notched 16 points and 10 rebounds, while Arnold Van Opstal registered 13 points and 14 rebounds. Almond Vosotros also logged 11 points.
Archers head coach Juno Sauler said they decided to take away UST's three-point shooting in this game. "We just tried to take away their three-point shots. That's what killed us in the first game," he said. "The reason why they had a good start in the last game was because [Kevin] Ferrer had three three-pointers in the first quarter. We tried to address that."
In game one, UST went 7-of-17 (41.2 percent) from beyond the arc. Today, the Tigers went just 5-of-23 (21.7 percent).
Sauler fielded just a seven-man rotation, a gamble that he felt short-changed them in the dying minutes of the fourth. "Yes, we played with seven. "Maybe we were tired, Hopefully we score more than 13 points in the fourth quarter," he said.
"We'll start working on improvements starting tomorrow. I think we did better today in terms of our assist-to-turnover ratio," Sauler added. DLSU had 16 assists to go with eight turnovers. Meanwhile UST had seven and 10, respectively.
Game three will be played on October 12 at 3:30 pm at the Mall of Asia Arena.
After shaking off some early jitters, Jeric Teng and Jon Sheriff powered the Tigers to a 9-6 advantage. But things went south for UST as the Archers' forays into the paint left Karim Abdul with two quick personal fouls. Jeron Teng drew the second on a potential and-one play but missed the bonus, though Arnold Van Opstal cleaned up the miss to hand DLSU the lead with four minutes to play.
With UST's offense crippled without Abdul, the Archers scored in bunches from the line or at the rim with Van Opstal and Teng leading the way. The pair combined for 11 points and closed the first quarter on a 15-3 run, 21-12.
Abdul's presence stabilized the Tigers when he started the second quarter, but UST still had problems keeping DLSU out of the paint. After a fierce tit-for-tat, Almond Vosotros widened the Archers' buffer with six straight points, nailing a triple and converting an and-one in transition, 36-19.
Kevin Ferrer stopped the bleeding, drawing Van Opstal's first foul on a charge, then taking his second while driving to the rim on the next play. That was followed by Jeric Teng earning an and-one on a long two, as he and the rest of UST continued to seek contact inside. The Tigers held down the paint on the defensive end, and despite Van Opstal's return to the floor, served the Archers with an 11-1 run with a minute to play, 38-31.
In the final 60 seconds of the first half though, Jeron Teng drew Abdul's third personal foul, then split from the line. Norbert Torres followed it up with a layup, the Archers' only field goal in the last 6:16, to enter the break with a 41-33 advantage.
At halftime, the Archers had a 35-21 (including 17-7 offensive) rebounding spread, leading to a 14-2 advantage in second-chance points.
The third frame was a game of runs as the older Teng and Clark Bautista nailed back-to-back treys by 7:28, icing a 10-3 run that forced DLSU to call for time, 44-43. However, the run was short-lived. Jason Perkins and Van Opstal got good position beneath the basket, while Vosotros drained a trey to reinstate a 55-45 lead.
UST called timeout with under four minutes left and off that quick break, trimmed the La Salle lead to six, 57-51. However, Ferrer got involved in a scrap with Norbert Torres for a loose ball, resulting in a blow to the face for the latter and an unsportsmanlike foul on Ferrer, his fourth personal. Torres made both freebies, then scored an and-one off Aljon Mariano, the latter's fourth personal.
At the end of the third period, DLSU imposed a double-digit lead anew, 64-53.
The Archers bullied their way inside in the fourth, continuing their strong performance on the offensive glass and overpowering UST's defenses inside. Van Opstal and the younger Teng scored eight of their first 13 points while Abdul and the older Teng converted isolation play, 77-63.
UST had one final push in them though, sparked by an Abdul and-one with three and a half minutes to play. The Tigers ground it out on defense and eked out a 7-0 run, capped by Ferrer making two-of-three charities with 51 seconds left. Though they forced another Archers turnover on the next possession, Bautista missed an open corner triple with under 20 seconds left, preventing them from advancing further.
The Archers shot 29-of-81 (35.8 percent) from the floor, while UST was 22-of-61 (36.1 percent). DLSU dominated the glass, 57-39, including 27-10 offensive. As a result, the Green-and-White topped the second-chance points spread, 18-6.
Jeric Teng led all scorers with 28 points on 10-of-22 shooting from the field. Karim Abdul was the only other Tiger in double digits, with 13 points and nine rebounds. - AMD, GMA News
THE SCORES:
DLSU 77: Teng 19, N Torres 16, Van Opstal 13, Vosotros 11, Revilla 9, Perkins 7, T Torres 2
UST 70: Teng 28, Abdul 13, Mariano 9, Sheriff 6, Ferrer 6, Bautista 6, Lo 2, Pe 0, Daquioag 0
WATCH 'UAAP 76 FINALS: Game 2: UST vs DLSU FULL GAME REPLAY VIDEO BELOW:
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