Eagles startle fancied Tams

MANILA, Philippines –  What a time for Ateneo to play its best game of the season.

Playing solid ball the entire game, the Blue Eagles tore Far Eastern University to pieces, 72-49, to inch closer to clinching a three-peat in the UAAP Season 73 men’s basketball tournament at the Araneta Coliseum last night.

Ateneo unloaded a balanced scoring attack led by Kirk Long’s 14 and Justin Chua’s 13 while stifling FEU, the league’s top offensive team, to a woeful 17-of-63 shooting (27 percent) to hack out the rout in what was expected to be a close encounter.

The Eagles will have a shot at a sweep of the best-of-three series and their third straight crown in Game 2 Thursday also at the Big Dome.

“We did a good job preparing for the game. We recognized our weaknesses against their team – we had to rebound the basketball and play good perimeter defense. On the other side we did the things we had to do offensively – we got out and ran,” said Ateneo coach Norman Black.

For the first time this year, Ateneo won the battle off the boards against FEU, 46-40. Five players grabbed five rebounds or more – Nico Salva (nine), Frank Golla and diminutive Emman Monfort (seven each), and Long and Chua (five apiece) – offsetting the absence of suspended slotman Edwin Jason Escueta.

The Eagles also ran away with 15 fastbreak points while holding the Tams scoreless in that department.

Ateneo broke the game wide open, 24-6, with a 15-0 bomb spearheaded by Erik Salamat and reserve center John Erram in the first canto. The Eagles never let up in the next three quarters, posting leads as large as 26, 47-21, in the third.

“This is probably our best game of the year but hopefully, we play better on Thursday,” said Black, who credited seldom-used Erram for filling in for Escueta with four points and five shot blocks.

FEU was led by soon-to-be-named MVP RR Garcia (11) and top freshman Terrence Romeo (10).

“We were completely outplayed,” said FEU athletic director Mark Molina, who subbed for coach Glen Capacio in the post-game chat with the press. “We tipped our hats off to Ateneo. (They had a) great start. Maybe it was the inexperience of the players in the finals; they were like deer in headlights, they simply couldn’t recover.”

“If you look at stats, the glaring advantage of Ateneo is the high field goal percentage (29-of-61 for 47.5 percent). They were also up in rebounds. They just executed 10 times better than us. Part of it is experience, part of it is preparation,” he added.

UAAP Notes: Game 1 of the Season 73 finals was shown on ABS-CBN 2 for the first time ever but the broadcast featured 48 minutes of commercial gap, prolonging the breaks off timeouts...Government and sports executives were on hand for the championship opener, among them Chief Justice Renato Corona, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, Philippine Olympic Committee spokesman Joey Romasanta and Philippine Sports Commissioner Chito Loyzaga, as well as Gilas Pilipinas coach Rajko Toroman...FEU’s 1990s star Johnny Abarrientos sat behind the Tams bench only to get disappointed with the outcome.