Letran, CSB try to seal title showdown
DEFENDING champion Letran and College of St. Benilde (CSB) seek to arrange a Finals showdown as the two teams clash against lowerranked opponents in the NCAA Season 98 men’s basketball Final Four today, November 29, at the Filoil EcoOil Centre.
The three-peat seeking Knights — the second seed team — play third-ranked Lyceum of the Philippines University (LPU) at 3 p.m., while elimination round topnotcher Blazers gun for their first championship appearance in two decades as they go up against No. 4 San Beda at 12 noon.
Victories by Letran and St. Benilde will seal their best-of-three title showdown starting Sunday.
The Knights settled for the No. 2 ranking after losing their final elimination round game, allowing the Pirates to clinch the third spot.
The Intramuros rivals, who also crossed paths in the stepladder semifinals in 2019, split their head-to-head meetings in the elims, with LPU capitalizing on the absence of suspended key players Brent Paraiso and Louie Sangalang to beat Letran in the first round.
The Knights, however, got their revenge in the second round.
Letran is a win away from reaching the Finals despite the offseason decision of Season 97 MVP Rhenz Abando to play in Korea and the early season struggles caused by the two-game bans on Paraiso and Sangalang.
As for the Blazers, they may have completed a sweep of their elimination round head-to-head against the Red Lions, but the Final Four is a different story.
“It doesn’t matter if we’ve beaten these teams sa semis, zero-zero all ‘yan sa semis. Iba yung pressure ‘nun. I don’t know how the guys will respond. We worked hard to be in this position so it’s a good feeling kahit papano,” said CSB coach Charles Tiu.
The Blazers, who are playing in their first Final Four since 2002, reached this far with the solid core led by leading MVP contender Will Gozum, Migs Oczon and Miggy Corteza.
For the second consecutive season, San Beda will have a twice-to-beat disadvantage in the Final Four, as the Mendiola-based squad was booted out by Mapua in the previous tournament — missing the Finals for the first time since 2005.
James Kwekuteye, JB Bahio and Tony Ynot will lead the Red Lions’ bid to send their semis duel with the Blazers to a decider on Friday.