THE DE La Salle Green Archers gave their former coach a thorough beating, picking apart his new team, the UST Growling Tigers, 99-72, at the Mall of Asia Arena on Oct. 3.
With the 27-point rout of UST, La Salle improved to a 3-2 win-loss card while the Tigers slipped to a 1-4 slate with their third-straight loss.
Highly regarded coach Aldin Ayo had led the Green Archers to a UAAP title in 2016 before moving to UST to guide a young team.
The Green Archers never looked back after Santi Santillan’s free throw in the second frame ended a 17-6 blitz.
“I think naging factor ang youth kasi puro bata ang nasa game and hindi lumalabas ang laro nila. Kung iko-compare ko practices namin, ang layo,” Ayo said in an interview.
La Salle had a slim 4-2 lead early in the opening frame before they exploded with a 17-7 run, topped by Santillan’s put-back, 21–9.
The Green Archers converted 13 easy points off UST’s 14 turnovers. The Green Archers also crushed the Tigers in bench points, 40-29.
Justine Baltazar led all scorers with 22 points and 10 rebounds while Aljun Melecio added 19 markers.
Renzo Subido led UST with 16 points while Marvin Lee and Zach Huang added 13 markers apiece.
Steve Akomo did not suit up for the Tigers due to food poisoning.
Young squad
After his first five games as head coach of the Tigers in the UAAP, Ayo cited the team’s inexperience and youth as factors of their sluggish performance this season.
“We played like rookies (in the fourth quarter), our inexperience manifested especially in the crucial stretch,” Ayo said after UST’s 71-79 loss to the Adamson University Soaring Falcons last Sept. 22.
Aside from their youth and inexperience, one of UST’s primary troubles this season is their shooting as they only made 33.24 of their shot attempts in their first five outings.
The Tigers have also been careless with the ball, averaging 18.2 turnovers per game so far.
Top-seed Adamson exploited UST’s weakness as it forced the Tigers to 27 turnovers en route to a 79-71 win.
The Tigers are also one of the worst in the league in outside-shooting, tallying 22.9 percent from three-point line.
But UST has become a better rebounding team this year, averaging 47 boards per game.
Despite the team’s slow start this season, Ayo remained positive of his wards’ development.
“Manalo o matalo, hindi ako masa-satisfy kasi when you don’t get satisfied, you will keep on improving and competing hanggang sa maabot ‘yong full potential and I know the team is competitive so we’ll just keep on playing hanggang sa lumabas ‘yon,” Ayo said.
UST will try to bounce back against the University of the East Red Warriors on Oct. 6, Saturday, 12 p.m., at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
