LA SALLE knows better than most that a championship race is rarely won at full speed from the opening gun.
Its title reclamation bid in UAAP Season 88 started with the Green Archers sputtering to a 3-4 record in the first round.
They steadied themselves just enough in the second, going 4-3 to salvage the No. 4 seed, before beating top seed National U twice in the Final Four then topping modern-day rival University of the Philippines in the finals to reclaim the crown.
A year later, the route looks eerily familiar.
Now as defending champions, they struggled early on once more, dropping back-to-back games to University of Santo Tomas and Far Eastern University before finally finding their footing again at the expense of University of the East.
READ: La Salle corrects course after clobbering lowly UE
La Salle is not exactly where it expected to be in its title defense. But neither is it panicking.
For head coach Topex Robinson, the answer is not to start looking at the teams ahead of them, but to stay in their own lane and keep their blinders on.
"We discussed about running our own race. We're just focusing on us and not who we're playing up against. We know that at any given time you sleep on these teams, they're really going to hurt you," he said, as they find themselves staring up at 3-1 Ateneo, as well as 2-1 UP, FEU, and Adamson.
"It's just about respecting the game. It's been good to us. Respecting it means always giving our best and doing the right thing."
The same philosophy extends beyond what happens between the lines.
After the losses to the Growling Tigers and the Tamaraws, there could have been plenty of room for fingers to point and excuses to surface. Instead, Robinson said the Green Archers' identity demands that all of them own their mistakes together.
"Jacob [Cortez] mentioned the word excuse or blame, and it's not part of our identity as a team. We call each other out if need be, be in each other's faces, but at the end of the day, these are the guys that you're going to go to battle with," he explained.
"And you want to make sure that trust will always be in the forefront of what we do. That's really the way we live it."
In familiar territory
Cortez, one of the key cogs of last season's title-winning side, sees that shared experience as one of the green-and-white's biggest advantages in navigating another imperfect start.
Even better, he, Luis Pablo, Earl Abadam, and Jcee Macalalag, among others, are back together and back for more.
"It's important to say that those are the people you're going to war with. That's something we could take from last season, especially with the other guys who were also there last season," he said.
It is a familiar formula for a team that has already proved it can come from behind in the championship race. Last season, La Salle did not need the fastest start to reach the finish line first.
Now, they hope to put on an encore.
"Just having fun. We're not perfect. We're going to make mistakes. Whether we like it or not, it's really going to be part of our season," Cortez said.
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