MANILA, Philippines – Life without Kevin Quiambao starts for La Salle.
The Green Archers go back to the drawing board minus the two-time UAAP Most Valuable Player after falling short of their title-retention bid as they shift their focus to Season 88 in 2025.
Quiambao decided to forego his two remaining years to turn professional in the Korean Basketball League following La Salle’s heartbreaking loss to the UP Fighting Maroons in the Season 87 finals.
“As painful as this is, we’ll learn from this in the next two weeks. It’ll be preparations for Season 88 for us,” Robinson told a small group of reporters after the winner-take-all Game 3 where the Green Archers lost, 66-62, on Sunday, December 15.
“We’re excited about it. As long as we know in our heart of hearts that we gave our best, then there’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he added.
“We played it until the final buzzer, and we did it the way how true Lasallians do it, we just kept on fighting.”
La Salle missed shot after shot down the stretch as the team failed to come any closer than 2 points in the final four minutes of action.
In an interesting twist, La Salle lost the same way UP lost Game 3 in Season 86 last year — missing three-pointers late and shooting a paltry 12-of-28 from the line.
DLSU also committed 23 turnovers, which directly led to 15 points for the Maroons.
“It was really an epic game that we played against them,” recalled Robinson.
“It went down to those few possessions again that we really are hoping for coming to this game, and breaks of the game, there’s a lot of things that happened there, if you’re going to look at the stats, the turnovers, the missed free throws, the missed threes, but again this is what championship is all about, those breaks that could favor any team.”
Aside from Quiambao, the team will be saying goodbye to Joshua David and Lian Ramiro, and perhaps, CJ Austria.
However, the team will be able to address its deficiencies in playmaking and guard scoring with the entry of Kean Baclaan, and Jacob Cortez.
Mason Amos, meanwhile, will look to add an outside presence for a team that shot a league-best 29.3% from downtown this year. – Rappler.com
