ATENEO head coach Tab Baldwin underscored the importance of his players ironing out their "deficiencies" moving forward after their first loss of the UAAP Season 85 men's basketball tournament, 83-78, at the hands of rival La Salle.
While he did not elaborate, stats showed the Blue Eagles enjoyed an overwhelming advantage off the boards, 63-41, but ended up losing to the Green Archers after a seven-game win run spanning five years.
[READ: La Salle deals rival Ateneo first loss of season]
"With those kinds of numbers, we should, I believe, rightfully expect the scoreline to look a lot different," said Baldwin. "It didn't, and I think we had issues with - let's just call it self-imposed composure.
"Again, that's being a bit unfair to La Salle, because they certainly had a lot to do with pressure in that game," added Baldwin.
"But I think that we did things as a basketball team and individually that are going to be extremely detrimental to our capability of vying for a championship. If we don't fix that, this moment, then we can start looking at Season 86," he added.
The deficiencies were enough for Baldwin to sound the alarm, as he vowed to fix the problems in practice for their next game against UST on Wednesday.
"[It] has to be fixed immediately. It's not a process. It's their job. They damn well better," he added.
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