Long road: Adamson eyes trip to Final Four after forcing playoff vs UE
MANILA, Philippines – Seeking to clinch the fourth and last Final Four playoff spot, the Adamson Soaring Falcons find themselves in an all too familiar situation in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament.
For the third year in a row, Adamson tries to enter the Final Four via a playoff for the fourth spot, this time against the UE Red Warriors, at the Mall of Asia Arena on Wednesday, November 27.
With both teams carrying identical 6-8 records at the end of the elimination round, the winner of this 6:30 pm clash will set up a Final Four date with the league-leading La Salle Green Archers on Saturday, November 30.
“We’re willing to go through that [playoff for fourth] every year, if that’s our shot to make it to the Final Four,” said Soaring Falcons mentor Nash Racela after keeping their season alive with a 69-55 win over the Ateneo Blue Eagles in the final game of the eliminations on Saturday, November 23.
Two seasons ago, Adamson — which was then led by superstar guard Jerom Lastimosa — gutted out an 80-76 escape over La Salle in their playoff for No. 4 to set up a semifinal clash with eventual Season 85 champions Ateneo.
Last year, the Soaring Falcons once again had one final crack to enter the Final Four through a knockout, but got overpowered by the Blue Eagles, 70-48.
Pitted against a struggling UE squad, which wasted multiple opportunities to secure an outright Final Four berth after dropping its last five matches, Racela knows that it’ll be a whole different game when they step on the floor on Wednesday.
Adamson and UE split their season series against each other, with the Red Warriors getting the better of the Soaring Falcons in their first-round matchup, thanks to a game-winning jumper by Wello Lingolingo at the buzzer.
In the second round, Adamson rode on the hot hands of AJ Fransman and Matt Erolon as they got back at UE with a low-scoring 45-37 win.
“When you get into the playoffs, when you get into a knockout game, everything that happened before won’t happen again,” said Racela in Filipino.
“It will be a totally different ball game, so you don’t really know what to expect. It will be different, but we will do our part in preparing the players.” – Rappler.com