ATENEO's resurgence late in the first round of UAAP Season 86 men's basketball was further validated by a showstopping 99-89 overtime win over title rival UP.
After losing three of its first five games, Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin says he isn't getting too excited with the Blue Eagles' newfound form until they deliver more 'high caliber' performances.
READ: Ateneo regains composure in overtime, deals UP Maroons first loss
"Because of where our season’s at at 4-3 (win-loss), this game really means nothing if we don’t back it up. Everyone of you won’t recall this, you won’t think about this as the first time we won back-to-back this season. If we can’t do more of that, then this will just be a moment instead of turning the corner this season," Baldwin said frankly.
"We need to turn the corner. It’ll be great if we can but we’ll find out on Wednesday if we can step up and be a high caliber team again, and we need to."
The Blue Eagles now share third with La Salle, but Baldwin notes there's a lot of work to be done.
"It is a very, very good win for our program but you gotta keep things in the context of the entire season. It becomes meaningless if we don’t play good basketball and follow this up and keep improving as a team. This is a great sign for the development of our team but we have seven games to go until we start showing consistency over more than just a couple of games," Baldwin said.
"Nobody should rest, nobody should feel comfortable. So I don’t really care about placings because we’re in a position now where we have to talk about winning games. I don’t like to do that but we have to. The placing on the standings is irrelevant right now," Baldwin stressed.
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