UAAP Season 76: Adamson Falcons Preview and Predictions

    The season starts in a couple of days, and teams are surely preparing hard for the grand chase to the Championship. The parity for the league this year is practically unheard of, with nearly every team being contenders not only for a Final Four spot, but also for the championship. 

     For my preview and predictions for each team, I will predict the team's standing (meaning the place that they will be in), and the different developments that I expect to see from the team as the season rolls on. I will also list down the key players for the team's run to the Final Four, and the players who we should watch out for developmental wise (rookies and bench players fall under this category).

  For this post, we'll be talking about the much improved Adamson Soaring Falcons.

Adamson Soaring Falcons

Season 75 Record: 3 - 11

Head Coach: Leo Austria

Lingering Question: Can Jericho Cruz lead this team and cement his status as a top guard?

Preseason Analysis:

    The preseason wasn't that eventful for the Soaring Falcons, but you also can't say that it was a complete failure. It was actually.so so for the Falcons. They reached the Quarterfinals of the Filoil Preseason Cup, before getting ousted by the UE Red Warriors (who I can actually consider a mirror image of the Falcons in a sense). They got to beat a quality team in FEU during the course of the preseason, and they gave NU the fits during one of their games which ended up in overtime. Jericho Cruz finally assumed his role as the main scorer of the team. Rodney Brondial is slowly turning to an elite power forward, even reaching the Mythical Five of the Filoil Tournament. Ingrid Sewa is HUGE, as he anchored the team's defense and rebounding.

Season 76 Predictions:
   If you think about it, Adamson is structured in a similar way as UE. They have a super scoring guard (Sumang to Cruz), a HUGE import (Mammie to Sewa, a rivalry we should watch out for), a reliable forward (Javier to Brondial), and tons of back up. Despite this though, they won't produce the same results that I predicted with UE.

Ingrid Sewa will have to improve in order for the Falcons to succeed.
(credits to gmanetwork.com)

  First of all, Jericho Cruz and Ingrid Sewa aren't on the same level as Sumang and Mammie. Sumang and Mammie are more polished and versatile players, while Cruz and Sewa are pretty one dimensional. Jericho Cruz is a good scorer, but that's it. His play making isn't fully developed yet, and he has a tendency to put up bad shots. Sewa on the other hand, is big. REALLY big at that. Just that actually. His overall basketball skill needs A LOT of improvement. Some post moves would be nice as well.

  Expect Adamson to rely on Sewa a lot, especially in the offensive end. They succeeded last year by relying on their perimeter game, but they can't rely on that too much this year. Roider Cabrera is too streaky, and Jericho Cruz is still inconsistent. Rodney Brondial will be the hustle player of Adamson, a la Calvin Abueva even by hitting put backs and grabbing those offensive boards like there's no tomorrow. Coach Leo will try to squeeze every single drop from his limited line up, so expect quality minutes from guys like Jansen Rios and Lloyd Abrigo.

  There's a bit of pressure on Adamson this year to succeed, and just like UE, their lack of experience may cause of to fumble during the tough times in this year. Coach Leo is undoubtedly a top notch coach, but that's not enough for a group of guys who are strangers to playoff situations. They will still be a team to worry about either way. They're on the rise, and the league should watch out.

Key players: 
   The centerpieces of the offense for Adamson this year are Rodney Brondial, Ingrid Sewa, Jericho Cruz and Roider Cabrera. The duos will lead the team's front court and back court scoring respectively. Ryan Monteclaro, Lloyd Abrigo and Jansen Rios will surely give Adamson additional firepower when needed.

Player/s to watch out for:
  . Remember this guy's name, ladies and gentlemen. Dawn Ochea.

Did Ochea make the right choice by going to Adamson?
(credits to spin.ph)

  Well, let's list down some of the achievements of Ochea. First of all, he is the CESAFI Juniors MVP, the top basketball league in Cebu (take note that Cebu is arguably the hotbed of pinoy hoopsters). He also lead Central Visayas past NCR in the Palarong Pambansa Finals, beating the Renzo Subido (who is a prime MVP candidate this season in the UAAP) lead squad. The problem with him though is that he's undersized for his position; the 5. He stands at 6'4, and centers in the UAAP nowadays stand at 6'7. He has one thing going for him though.. and that's HEART.

  Another player on the watch is recruit Axel Inigo, a product of the San Beda High School program. He stands at only 5'6, so you can actually call him an undersized guard (wow, there's such a thing?). Despite his small stature though, he is quite the player. He has crazy range, and if you leave him alone in the three point arc, just run to the other side of the court already so that you can set your offense up. His jumper is money. What I have yet to see from him though is his playmaking. I hope he gets to develop this weapon even more, and who knows, he could develop to Emman Monfort 2.0.

Place by the end of the season: 6th (will not make Final Four)
  As I said, this team is structured probably the same way the UE is structured. Thing is, the pieces from Recto are more developed and polished, and that could be the key factor in Adamson's run this season. They won't get a record as bad as last year, but they won't make the final four. That's it. If that happens, well all they can do is look up and try to soar to even greater heights.

The next squad that will be previewed is the FEU Tamaraws.