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UAAP Season 79 Juniors Basketball Day 4 Round Up

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Can anyone stop Gerry Abadiano and the Adamson Baby Falcons?
(Photo Credit to Owner)

Results:

FEU Baby Tamaraws def. UE Junior Warriors 100-82

AdU Baby Falcons def. Ateneo Blue Eaglets 77-65

NU Bullpups def. DLSZ Junior Archers 80-55

UST Tiger Cubs def. UPIS Junior Maroons 69-67

Notable Performances:

Xyrus Torres (FEU): 23 points, 7 rebounds

Daniel Celzo (FEU): 18 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks

Encho Serrano (AdU): 23 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals

SJ Belangel (ADMU): 14 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists

Juan Gomez de Liano (UPIS): 20 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 8 turnovers 

Miguel Ratuiste (UST): 21 points, 16 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks

Key Storylines:

Ateneo has a BIG problem

For their first game of the season, Ateneo immediately trotted out a line-up which featured four players standing at 6'3" and above plus elite playmaker, SJ Belangel. The scary thing was that Ateneo had more players who stood that tall in the team. That shoul result to an elite rebounding team right?

That hasn't been the case at all this Season 79. 

Among all teams, Ateneo is second to the last when it comes to reboundig. When I talked to Coach Joe Silva and Ateneo assistant coach Danny Ildefonso regarding this issue, both coaches echoed the same sentiment: height can only do so much when it comes to rebounding. With most bigs in the Blue Eaglets with little to no experience of organized basketball just yet, big man play has been the Eaglets' biggest problem this season.

Belangel may be putting up MVP level numbers, but he needs some help. Getting some help from his bigs can be a good start for the slumping Eaglets. 

The UE Junior Warriors are showing a lot of fight

An initial look at the stat sheet will give the fan an idea that the match between FEU and UE as a downright blowout. The reality of it is that, that wasn't the case at all. 

The Junior Warriors were standing close to the Baby Tamaraws before FEU decided to turn on the jets and grab the win. But we have to give UE a ton of credit for hanging close against a team that was clearly bigger, and much more talented than them. 

This is the kind of attitude that is far from a team which has only won just one game in a span of three seasons. Can UE eventually embrace a winning culture? That's a tough question to answer at this juncture, but this is certainly a good start for them.

UPIS and their confusing identity 

After they got beat against the Adamson Baby Falcons by a whopping 22 points, you could have easily counted out the UPIS Junior Maroons. They then proceeded to beat DLSZ and UE in convincing fashion, the Final Four hopes of the Maroons looked clear once more. After a loss against the UST Tiger Cubs where they found themselves down by as much as 16 points, I can only do so much to answer whether the Maroons really are a Final Four team.

There have been instances where they've shown that they're more than just the team with Juan GDL in it. But against UST, Juan played the whole game. Sure he produced gaudy numbers, but he also committed 8 turnovers. Juan can only do so much for the Maroons. The challenge now is for the rest of Juan's supporting cast to provide the league's best player some help, which could then help the Maroons with their stability. 

Next Schedule of Games:

9:00 AM: UST vs. NU

11:00 AM: FEU vs. UPIS

1:00 PM: AdU vs. DLSZ

3:00 PM: UE vs. ADMU
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