REVENGE won't be in La Salle's vocabulary when it meets Ateneo for the second time in UAAP Season 86 men's basketball after a 72-77 loss back in Round 1.
After avenging their first-round defeats to league-leaders UP and NU, Green Archers head coach Topex Robinson only plans on 'outworking' their rivals without any desire to settle an old score.
READ: La Salle stays within reach of Top Two spot after dispatching FEU
"We try to take out that revenge vocabulary in our system and we just want to be the better team come Saturday. Whoever the team we’re gonna play, it just so happened to be Ateneo and it just so happened they’re the last team that we’re gonna play and the team that beat us in the first round.
"It shouldn’t define how we’re gonna approach this Saturday game. It should be just doing our best, outworking the other team," said Robinson.
As is the case in one of Philippine basketball's greatest sporting rivalry, Robinson seeks to block out all the noise that comes with any rivalry game.
"I know there’s going to be a lot of distractions coming this Saturday, but it shouldn’t affect us, and make our circle solid that whatever challenges we’re gonna face, we’re gonna get better," Robinson said.
"After that, you play the next playing date or the week after, so we don’t want this to define us as a team how we’re gonna play on Saturday. It’ll never be revenge. It’s just we want to compete against one of the best teams in the UAAP. 'Yun 'yung palaging iniisip when we play Ateneo — they’re our worthy rivals."
More than just the wins for La Salle
The first-year Archers coach has no plans of basking on the glory of leading his wards to the school's best prelims record since 2017.
Instead, Robinson attributes La Salle's early success this season to its culture of camaraderie.
"FEU gave us a good fight and we just tried to match or taasan namin yung effort namin against them because Saturday’s gonna be a different specie, a different situation.
"That seven straight wins shouldn’t define us as a team. The reason we’re successful is we play together as a team, shared struggles when we were losing games, and now, shared victories," Robinson said.
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