UP guns for Final Four bonus

DEFENDING champ University of the Philippines (UP) shoots for an eighth straight win as it faces De La Salle University (DLSU) in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Season 85 men’s basketball tournament on Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

The Fighting Maroons battle the Green Archers at 6:30 p.m. in the main game of the day’s quadrupleheader, with the former potentially finishing at least in the top two and securing a twice-to-beat incentive in the Final Four.

That is if UP can take care of business against La Salle and either Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) or National University (NU) paving the way for the Maroons to clinch the twice-to-beat semifinals advantage by losing to their respective opponents earlier in the day.

Ateneo faces Far Eastern University (FEU) at 11 a.m. and NU takes on University of Santo Tomas (UST) at 1 p.m.

Should the Blue Eagles and the Bulldogs beat their opposition, the Maroons then would have to clinch the twice-tobeat incentive on the next game day.

As he has been saying from the beginning of the season, UP head coach Goldwin Monteverde said that his team is just focused on improving and being consistent and everything will take care of itself.

“We just need to work on being consistent. That’s one part of our game that we need to iron out. We can’t play in spurts. We need to be consistent offensively and defensively,” said Monteverde, whose team is coming off a 73-59 win over FEU last Thursday.

“We’re really gonna work on it, and we go to every game this season looking to get better. Hopefully, we can improve more.”

Meanwhile, the fourth-running La Salle looks to avenge its first round loss to UP and further boost its chances of making the Final Four.

The Green Archers just ended a fourgame skid with an 81-78 win over Adamson University thanks to CJ Austria’s game-winning triple last Thursday.

La Salle head coach Derrick Pumaren is relieved to finally have his team taste a victory anew, and he hopes that they can build on it in the homestretch of the eliminations.