UAAP: La Salle faces Game 1 Finals loss against UP as a ‘united front’

The DLSU Green Archers aren’t about to turn on each other after suffering a tough loss at the hands of the UP Fighting Maroons, 73-65, in Game 1 of the UAAP Season 87 Finals on Sunday night.

Snapping a 4-game win streak against UP, La Salle moved on the verge of being ousted from their throne as the Fighting Maroons are now one game win away from taking their first championship since UAAP Season 84.

Despite heading into the game as the favorites owing to their 2-game elimination sweep of UP, La Salle fell on the back foot in the second half, as they struggled to find their offense in the last two quarters.

[RELATED: UP Fighting Maroons repulse La Salle to take Game 1 of UAAP Season 87 Finals]

But with their championship mentality, La Salle head coach Topex Robinson knows that adversities like these are only going to make their team stronger.

“The good thing about the team in the dugout, was nobody was blaming nobody. We’ve gone this far because of how we really became a united front and we will not let any negativity get in our way. We will play this championship the way we should play, as a big family,” said Robinson. 

“'Di naman palagi flowers and rainbows and makikita mo eh; you got to go through those rough patches. It's just gonna define us as a team, as long as we always do it right, we play right and honor this game that we love, that has always been good to us and we will not be defined by losing a game we have learned that if we lose the next two games, what's important to us is we stick to what we live for we take care of each other, we protect each other that's the most important thing,” he added.

Leaning on the services of presumptive MVP Kevin Quiambao, La Salle has more often than not been on the right end of things at the final buzzer, especially against the Fighting Maroons whom they beat in four of their last six meetings in the UAAP, stemming from last year’s Finals.

But moving the past aside, Robinson said they’ll just need to look at what happened in Game 1 — not what happened during eliminations or last year’s finals, in order to figure out how to move forward from the loss.

Though history remains on their side, with UP losing their last two finals’ series despite winning Game 1, Robinson isn’t going to rely on records alone, but rather will ensure that his team comes out in Game Two ready to fight back.

[RELATED: ‘Game 1 doesn’t win a championship’: Goldwin Monteverde still wary as UP draws first blood vs La Salle]

Because at the end of the day, when it’s for all the marbles, nothing matters but the present.

“We don’t look back at the past, that's done and over with, we just make sure if we thought of that, of course UP has thought of that as well that they lost, won game one [last year], we just need to let things go and focus on what we have, the players are different now we have a younger team, the team that played last season was gone and have moved forward,” said Robinson. 

“So sa'min we just have to slug it out, 'yun lang naman masasabi namin. We just have to make sure we will give ourselves a chance to win, as bad as we played, it still went down to a few possessions, they did a good job defensively and credit goes to them they really came in prepared,” he added.