GAME One of the UAAP Season 86 men's basketball finals for La Salle was too close for comfort — not from a scoreline standpoint but from a physicality aspect.
With the Archers' one-two punch of Kevin Quiambao (11 points) and Evan Nelle (eight points) shackled and trapped for the most part, debuting head coach Topex Robinson was left to rue what could've been in his UAAP Finals debut.
READ: Topex left searching for answers as he stares at another final failure
"We didn’t get the memo that this is gonna be (the level of play) as far as the physicality of the game is. So we have to be ready that it’s gonna be the same (in Game Two), and as much as we wanna complain about some things, we just wanna really focus on ourselves," Robinson said.
And being on the wrong side of the most one-sided title series opener in the UAAP Final Four era doesn't concern him, given that there's still at least another shot to rectify their mistakes.
"There’s no time for us to really cry over spilled milk. If this is one of the records of the worst loss in the finals, we could also do something about it (when) we play Sunday. We know what championship basketball is all about, we know what it takes, and we just have to really be prepared for our game on Sunday."
While emotions shouldn't get the best of any team in such a high-stakes series, Robinson admits that the team was 'hurt' from being dealt a massive beating.
"Obviously, it really hurt everybody but we have to really go through this. Winning a championship isn’t gonna be easy and I guess taking the easy route will give us this kind of result. Again, we have to go back to try to figure out how we’re gonna get our guys in a better situation to succeed.
"(Game One) is done and over with, it really tasted sour. Obviously, there’s gonna be a lot of great minds telling us what to do but at the end of the day, we stick together as a group. Whatever happens, we’re gonna win together, we’re gonna lose together," Robinson added.
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