Slowly but surely, the Ateneo Blue Eagles are showing the stuff that they are made of in Season 84 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball tournament.
Team captain Gian Mamuyac showed leadership when the Blue Eagles mauled the University of the East Warriors, 94-72, on Thursday for its 32nd straight win in three seasons at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Against the University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers on Saturday, coach Tab Baldwin promises to show another side of the team when the two squads meet at 4 p.m.
The Growling Tigers, who have a 2-4 win-loss slate, will seek to bounce back from a two-game losing skid.
“We have shooters, we have inside guys and we’re supposed to have a running game, too, but that really isn’t manifesting really itself right now,” said Baldwin after they registered their sixth straight triumph for the season.
Hurdling the Growling Tigers will allow the Blue Eagles to sweep the first round and make a bid to stretch their historic winning run to the next round.
Statistically, Angelo Kouame and Dave Ildefonso emerged as among Ateneo’s scoring leaders with their norms of 13.67 and 13.6 points, respectively.
Kouame is also one of the team’s three sharp shooters, the others being Raffy Verano and Geoff Chiu.
An Ivorian cager who recently became a naturalized Filipino, Kouame has a field goal percentage of 57.81 percent going into Ateneo’s seventh game of the season, with Verano being their most accurate hitter (59.38).
And they can also count on Chiu (52.63) and his 10 of 19 shooting clip per game.
As for Gian Mamuyac, he can occasionally lift the Eagles with his 9.17 ppg whenever possible, just like in their game with the Warriors.
“And we got to the line a lot, we got the ball inside in the second half, you know Ange had a big game in the second half. So you know finding where we can be successful, and then trying to exploit that as much as we can is a key for this team because we have weapons go from different angles,” added Baldwin.