Games today (Cebu Coliseum)
5 p.m. – USC vs. USJ-R (For Third)
6:45 p.m. – SWU vs. UV (Game 2)
After turning trash into gold, the Southwestern University Cobras look to assert themselves again tonight and take a commanding 2-0 lead in Game Two of the best-of-five championship series in the 13th Cesafi men’s basketball tournament against the University of the Visayas Green Lancers at the Cebu Coliseum.
The Cobras’ braintrust lead by head coach Raul “Yayoy” Alcoseba admitted that their squad played a “bad game” in Game One, a struggle that saw their top players shoot blanks from all over the floor and commit a whopping 30 turnovers, eight coming from their ace guard, Mark Jayven Tallo.
But in spite of all those humps, the Cobras still managed to eke out a 64-52 win, thanks largely to the hustle and heart of reserve forward, Daryl Goloran, who sparked SWU out of their doldrums with 13 points and eight rebounds.
Still, Alcoseba expects his team to play better if they are to grip this series by its neck. It can be recalled that the Cobras won Game 1 of the finals series last year against these very same Lancers but lost the next two games to fall into a 1-2 hole.
“I just reminded the boys to stay hungry and to never be satisfied. We need to stick to our game plan and really take care of the ball,” Alcoseba said following their morning practice yesterday at the Cebu Coliseum.
Tallo, one of the driving forces behind the Cobras’ success this season whose engine was stalled in Game One due to the physical man-to-man defense thrown at him, expects to work even harder to make an impact in Game Two tonight.
“It’s a lot of hard work going up against UV’s defense. I just have to react off my instinct and get my teammates more involved in the game,” said Tallo, who made up for his turnovers by scoring a crucial three-pointer and giving off two assists in the final two minutes of the match.
Though Lancers’ head coach Felix Belano admitted that they were down, he was adamant that they were far from being out.
“The championship will not be won with a single game. We will continue to play good defense, execute our game plan and limit their backcourt. But at the same time, we also have to improve on our free-throw shooting (10-of-26) and the amount of second-chance points we gave up (18) because those really hurt us the most,” said Belano whose Lancers have not won over the Cobras since Game Three of last year’s series.
Moreover, the Lancers missed the offense of firestarter John Abad, who managed just four points while battling foul trouble in Game One.