COACH Tab Baldwin offered no excuses for what has been a nightmarish UAAP Season 87 so far for once-dynastic Ateneo.
Ending the first round dead-last with a 1-6 win-loss card, the American-Kiwi mentor acknowledged this funk being “unprecedented in our era,” but he refused to cry over spilled milk.
READ: NU sends Ateneo to last place at end of UAAP Season 87 Round 1
“It is what it is. There’s no excuses for it,” he said on the heels of their 78-68 defeat to National University on Saturday.
Baldwin also shunned the supposed talks of inexperience of the Blue Eagles, saying, “They've had half a season to become seasoned and become more experienced.”
All but four of Ateneo's 15-man roster are either in their first and second years, with Chris Koon and Sean Quitevis the lone graduating players.
Plain and simple, he added “we've got to play better basketball.”
For example in this game against NU, Ateneo had its best shooting game to date, going 10-of-34 from deep – something which the team “hasn't done the entire first round.”
Unfortunately, defense kept being the bane of the Blue Eagles, as they allowed the Bulldogs to also have a good offensive game by scoring 40 in the second half.
“It's a simple formula. You've got to put all the good stuff together with the other good stuff and make the bad stuff a lot less. We put, I think, our highest points total up on the board, but we also allowed NU a great second half,” he explained.
“We're just not putting them together so far this year. And we just have to give every effort to avoiding the inconsistencies that we're a good defensive team one game and then the next, (we're) not. We're good free throw shooting one game, the next we're not. We hit some threes one game, the next we don't.”
Baldwin said that for Ateneo to return to its winning ways, it has to know itself better rather than just being “reactive to what our opposition brings to the game.”
“We have to be more consistent on play that characterizes what kind of team we want to be, and until we do that, results are going to be hard to come by," he said.
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