With Kevin Quiambao leading the team, La Salle has scored three straight wins to open the UAAP season. —MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
Winning its first three games, including a thorough whitewashing of an old, bitter rival just a few nights ago has justified La Salle’s tag as a powerhouse and the consensus team to beat in Season 87 of the UAAP men’s basketball tournament.
Defending the championship is a first-time experience for this batch of Green Archers, whose cornerstone, reigning MVP Kevin Quiambao, is leading a no-nonsense approach in trying to accomplish that task.
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La Salle brought down rock-solid National University to touch off that streak, which was capped by a 74-61 demolition of Ateneo just last Sunday. But even with those, Quiambao remains on even keel, the same attitude that his teammates have.
SCHEDULE: UAAP Season 87 basketball
“In the team’s culture, you just have to give your best every time,” Kevin Quiambao told the Inquirer in Filipino after that authoritative win over the Blue Eagles. ”Of course, the school pride is still there with the history of [our] schools, the rivalry is still there.
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“We’re just doing this for the community. We are giving our best for the alumni, to pay respect to the ones before us by playing hard,” he added.
While La Salle is trying to scoot away from the rest of the field, the Eagles have gone the other way, going 0-3 with a roster depleted by a lot of key players leaving during the offseason.
READ: UAAP: La Salle’s strong bond, togetherness evident in latest win
But that doesn’t take any sweetness away from the win, for it is, after all, the biggest rivalry in all of collegiate sports in the land.
And Quiambao was the first to admit to playing with nerves. Even if La Salle was listed as an overwhelming pregame favorite.
“Knowing the big crowds this matchup pulls, I still felt nervous,” Quiambao said, before joking: “But coach Topex (Robinson) tells me that if I don’t feel nervous anymore, I should just retire. It’s a part of life.
“But nerves are also different from excitement even though it feels the same—it’s up to you how you will approach it.”
With excitement
La Salle’s Kevin Quiambao and coach Topex Robinson share a moment during the Green Archers’ victory over Ateneo in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament.–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
Quiambao approached the game with excitement and flirted with the first triple-double of the season, something he has done repeatedly last year on the way to ending a seven-year title drought for La Salle.
While having friendly banters and light moments with Robinson, who on the sidelines had teased and blamed Quiambao for some bad decisions, the do-it-all big man came up with 13 points, 13 rebounds, seven assists and two steals.
“I just got excited to see my hard work in the offseason pay off, but I was still focused on the game and I didn’t think that I needed a triple-double.
“What we need is the win,” he added as the Archers look to continue racking up their wins behind the lessons they acquire every game.
“I am just enjoying the moment, because this is once in a lifetime. We will focus next on [University of the East],” Quiambao said of their next opponent, the skidding Red Warriors.
And La Salle will not be looking to step off the gas pedal.
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“The ball is round, we will focus on one possession at a time, do our best. And like what coach Topex says: respect the opponent, the utilities that they have, respect the game and our culture will be the byproduct of our results,” Quiambao said.