JERRICK Ahanmisi hopes to live up to the expectations of Adamson head coach Franz Pumaren as the Falcons' new go-to guy this UAAP Season 81.
After back-to-back Finak Four appearances — only to be foiled by De La Salle, Pumaren are eyeing the Falcons to reach the Finals this year and he is expecting Ahanmisi to be one of his wards to step up bigtime.
“Basically, you’ll be seeing a different Jerrick. We made some adjustments with the way he shoots, hopefully he can lead by example. Jerrick is not an outspoken guy. Sometimes, I tell him that he has to be a little bit selfish,” Pumaren said.
Ahanmisi, who averaged 12.7 points, 2.3 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.1 steals in 27.8 minutes last season, is ready to take on that daunting challenge and bigger responsibility on his team.
“Coach Franz wants me to do that and he really wants me to become that for our team. All I’m trying to do is work on in practice try to work on it during the end of the games like scrimmages and stuff like that,” the Filipino-American cager said.
“It’s definitely something to adjust to but hopefully I can get it by the start of the season,” he added.
But there are no promises given by Ahanmisi; he just wants to let his game speak for himself this coming season.
“I don’t wanna give away anything, I don’t wanna say much but I’m just gonna say I’ll try to work around on my all-around game, my offense, aggressiveness, defense and all those stuff. So hopefully I got better all-around,” he said.
All he knows that this batch of Falcons are motivated and deep enough to overcome the Final Four hump and soar all the way to the Finals.
“Obviously, the goal for us this season is to get to the finals this year for the past two years we’ve been losing in the final four and it’s been heartbreaking ,” Ahanmisi said. “Maybe this year, our team is more motivated and more energetic to get to the finals.”
“I think we could be a contender for this season because of the diversity of our team even though we really have half rookies and half vets I think that mixture would be little bit of advantage for us because different weapons on our team and different people to use at different times,” added the shooting guard.
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