UV cagers taste third straight rout in 2013 Summer Universiade games

The University of the Visayas (UV)-manned Philippine team continued in its struggle in the basketball event of the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia as the Green Lancers suffered two more routs against separate opponents.

The struggling Lancers got crushed by Japan, 93-51, yesterday. On Monday, Serbia handed UV its biggest loss in the games with a 125-44 rout.

The Green Lancers are now 0-3 (win-loss) in the tournament. They opened their campaign with a 106-58 loss to Romania last Sunday.

The result of UV’s games is reminiscent of deflating performance of the then-Cesafi champions University of Cebu in the 2011 Universiade held in Shenzen, China, where the Webmasters lost all of their games by an average of 55.6 points.

Eleven out of the 12 players of Japan scored in the victory over the Philippines headed by the 17 of Soichiro Fujitaka and 11 of Yuya Nagayoshi.

Milos Dimic, meanwhile, had 22 and Dorde Drenovac chipped in 20 for Serbia. Just like in UV’s game against Japan, only one of the 12 players in Serbia’s roster failed to score, underscoring the team’s dominant performance.

Rhaffy Octobre had 15 for UV in the loss to Japan while John Abad led the team with eight in the loss to Serbia. No player scored in double figures for UV in the game against Serbia.

The Green Lancers will next face Mongolia tomorrow and Mexico on Friday.

Basketball is one of 11 sports that the Philippines is participating at in this biennial multi-sporting event that has an estimated 13,500 athletes and officials from nearly 200 countries.

This prestigious multi-sport Universiade features the most prominent university athletes in the world and is considered the Olympics of the university competitions.