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With San Beda’s 100-76 win over Perpetual today, the De La Salle Green Archers advance to the quarterfinals of the Fil-Oil Flying V Preseason tournament. They will face current NCAA champion San Sebastian Stags this Wednesday at 6pm in a knock-out match for a slot in the semis.

Here are some more highlights from yesterday’s game:

Ferdinand’s asserting himself inside. Yes, he had a few miscues, but it wasn’t for lack of aggressiveness. He even had a chirpy session with an opposing big, and was called for an unsportsmanlike foul after being bumped and trash talked while walking back after one of our baskets. He’s not going to back down against anyone. I liked his willingness to attack inside, and his newly found ambidextrous form which allows him to take a hook or floater using either hand. And he’s always a threat when we take foul shots and miss (a common occurrence), because he’s quick enough to track down the carom for a putback. Just a little more discretion on what moves to make, and he’ll be a force in the paint for us.

Simon, when he’s on, is a threat from the long court, and his heads-up play allows him to create a break after a rebound, spotting teammates sprinting for our basket and getting it to them in the optimum position to score. Coach Dindo is utilizing him more and more as a 2 or 3 together with Tolentino, Vosotros, Elorde, and de la Paz, and this gives the team a lot of flexibility and speed, and gives our press that much needed quickness. We saw how effective the press could be with this quick lineup. Simon’s improved decision-making and on-court judgment might position him to be the much-needed leader of the team this year, if he keeps it up.

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DLSU experienced another blowout today. But unlike their previous two games, it’s their turn to be on the winning end. Capitalizing on their quickness and pressure defense, the Green Archers proved that their arrows were sharper than those of the Chiefs of Arellano University.

With their 89-60 victory La Salle has already one foot in the quarterfinals in the Fil-Oil Flying V Preseason tournament. They await the outcome of the San Beda-Perpetual game tomorrow. Barring any upsets, the Red Lions should win here thus giving the Archers a ticket to the quarters. An Altas’ win will tie them with the Archers but it will be them who will advance to the next round by virtue of the win-over-the-other tiebreaker.

The Green Archers’ execution of the full-court press was excellent today, forcing a lot of turnovers thus resulting to numerous fast break plays. The Chiefs simply crumbled after starting the game strong while our boys played loose today just like their game against EAC.

After letting Arellano take a 1-8 lead, the Archers turned on the heat with the familiar full-court press forcing turnovers to regain the lead at 10-8, which they never relinquished. The nightmare press was effective all game long, forcing consecutive turnovers for easy points that allowed the lead to balloon to 22 at the half.

Unlike in previous games, the Archers finally started hitting from the long court, with Atkins hitting 3 treys on quick catch-and-shoot plays. The Archers also dominated the paint, with Mendoza, Ferdinand, and Andrada scoring in the shaded lane and together with Paredes blocking or altering the shots of the Chiefs.  The wide-open game allowed Tampus to showcase his penetration skills, picking the pockets of the Chiefs’ guards before driving to score on contested layups.

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I agree, no excuses. We lost last Friday, because the team didn’t play well enough to beat the opponents.

I’m not the coach, so I don’t know what the objective of joining this pre-season tournament is. But let’s take a look at 2 scenarios and see what the possible implications are:

1) The objective is to win this tournament – If so, then expect the coaches to play all out to win as many games to get to the playoffs, then prepare specifically for each game to try to win the title. This assumes that the coaches already have a core team in mind. The best players will see the most action, so the rotation will be short, maybe a maximum of 10 players. Those outside the rotation will probably see floor time only during garbage time, when the game is out of reach either way, or in the last few meaningless seconds of a quarter, or when they need a body to foul an opponent and don’t want the rotation players to sacrifice a foul. Our rotation players will probably improve, but our bench will effectively be a lot shallower because the bench players won’t get much exposure.

2) The objective is to maximize the exposure of the players in preparation for a strong showing in the UAAP – If this is the case, winning the tournament will be secondary to preparing for the UAAP wars. We’ll see a lot of experimentation and rotation of players, to give them more confidence and allow them to become more familiar with each other and the patterns designed by the coaches. The downside is that the team may lose some “winnable” games against teams perceived as weaker.

It all depends on the objectives of the coaches. We may want the team to win every game, but if the coaches “must have” is to prepare for the UAAP, then winning might just be a “nice to have”. The proper pacing of the preparations has always been a trademark of past Archer champion teams. Pre-season tournament championships are nice, but the real prize is the UAAP championship trophy. The team will peak sometime around the end of the first round of the UAAP, and by then we’ll know whether this team has what it takes to go all the way.

One possible concern if the team goes all-out in the pre-season is the risk of possible injuries that may affect a player’s performance in the UAAP. Remember that last year, Arvie was never 100% in the UAAP due to a groin injury he was nursing in the pre-season.

One of Stephen Covey’s 7 habits is “begin with the end in mind”. Our coaches have their end objective. How they get the team there might be inferred from how the team is performing today.

With the Green Archers’ shocking 56-71 loss to the UPHDS Altas today, many are beginning to think that maybe the 2-week Chicago training does the team more harm than good. It’s too early to tell, but for some, they fear the team’s breakdown in 2009 will repeat itself.

Last year the Green Archers had a great start in both the Fil-Oil and Nike preseason tournaments before they left overseas. When they returned, the team’s fortunes for the rest of the year took a turn for the worse. The Archers suffered a series of setbacks that eventually took them out of contention in the preseason. The bad luck carried over into the UAAP wherein the Archers finished 6th and failed to reach the Final 4 for the first time. The postseason was no different as they got knocked out immediately by a short-handed Letran squad in the first round of the PCCL.

The loss was totally unexpected. Many were hoping that the team would perform much better after their training. The Green Archers were simply out-of-sync with only two players scoring in double digits. The boys’ intensity on both ends was evidently lacking as they allowed the Altas to score at will.

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