Beware: Ateneo not in peak form yet

I would be the least surprised if Ateneo proceeds to retain its UAAP basketball crown.

With one game left in its 14-game calendar, Ateneo assumes a peacock-like stance of holding aloft a tournament-leading 11-2 record.

It now owns a coveted twice-to-beat bonus in the Final 4 playoffs. Just one win in the semifinals and Ateneo is a finalist. Again.

That came about after the Blue Eagles’ another punctual 71-62 drubbing of the Green Archers on Sunday, giving Ateneo a rare sweep of its archrival La Salle.

And the good thing about all this is that Ateneo isn’t even at its peak form yet. Which is good because it’s always bad for any team to reach peak pleateau when the Final grind is a bit far away yet.

Maybe, you haven’t noticed that Ateneo had a shaky start, losing right out of the starting blocks. But slowly but surely, the Eagles climbed back to form and would soon find themselves clambering up the leaderboard. To stay.

Again on Sunday against the Archers, the Eagles typified their staying power and ability to rise from adversity.

They trailed immediately at the start, continually by eight points, as their bigs in Angelo Kouame, Isaac Go and Raffy Verano got saddled with fouls.

But then, Tab Baldwin’s usual adroit coaching surfaced.

The eagle-eyed American surveyed his bench—admittedly deep by any standard—then plucked out the seldom-used William Navarro. Navarro banged away seven unexpected first half points, enabling Ateneo to force a 35all first half against La Salle.

With the tone of the fight set, Ateneo simply controlled virtually everything in the second half, starring Thirdy Ravena. Oh, yes, Ravena. Not true that his off-the-bench stint on Sunday was unexpected.

To Baldwin, Ravena is picture-perfect for the role of nonstarter. That was proven again when Thirdy’s weekend warbling produced a game-high 14 points to go with 10 rebounds for a reprise of his almost-routine double-double performance practically every game.

With Thirdy’s killer outings, consistently, did Ateneo miss Kiefer, Thirdy’s equally deadly brother? Not really.