DESPITE the Tigresses’ lackluster showing in Season 68, head coach Peque Tan envisions her team as a Final Four contender this year.
“We have bigger chances this season because the players have matured and mastered their moves,” Tan told the Varsitarian.
With a lineup consisting of formidable veterans and prized rookies, Tan’s wards may finally head to a podium finish after an 11-year title drought.
In the coming season, UST will be bannered by old reliables Camille Viñas, Joanne Gregorio, Kath Buyco, and team captain Nerissa Noscal. Last season, Gregorio and Viñas each registered 6.8 points per game. Meanwhile, Noscal averaged 7.8 rebounds per game and posted an efficiency rating of 11.8 per cent, the highest in the lineup.
Tan, however, remains modest about her expectations.
“I do not want to promise anything but I just hope that they would play well,” Tan said.
It is now or never for Noscal and Buyco who are playing their last season. Along with the veterans, team skipper Noscal and Buyco must step up their game with the exit of shooting-forward Risha Vargas, UST’s top scorer last season. The Tigresses also have to grab on to the leather well to lessen their average of 29.6 turnovers per game last season, the second worst in the league behind the University of the East (UE) Lady Warriors.
Tan, however, was not worried even without Vargas in the roster, having acquired valuable greenhorns.
Reigning Women’s Basketball League (WBL) and Team-B pointguard MVP Marichu Bacaro leads the pack of Tigresses neophytes. The Bacolod-native’s impressive performance (31 points and eight steals) led UST to its fifth straight WBL crown against Ateneo de Manila University, 61-57, last December.
Joining Bacaro are power forward Remia Buenacosa and center Mikko Obrador, who were also drafted from Team-B.
Buenacosa, who is also from Bacolod, chipped in 18 points and 14 rebounds for UST in the WBL finals. Currently playing with Team-A’s off-season games, Buenacosa has been a consistent double-digit scorer. Obrador, on the other hand, could reinforce UST’s defense with her 6’1” frame. She was a member of the University’s football team in her freshman year before joining the Tigresses Team-B last semester.
Should the España-based cagebelles beat the Far Eastern University (FEU) Lady Tamaraws, the league’s top contender that defeated UST in a tightly-contested finals in the Home and Away Invitational League (HAIL) last February in their first encounter, Tan said she can already see the title for UST.
“We almost beat them in HAIL. We are leading but toward the homestretch, my players fumbled and we lost the momentum,” Tan said. “They were not able to deliver during crunch time and we are working on that weakness.” Maria Jesamine D.G. Palarca
