The University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons and the De La Salle University Green Archers are gearing up for their highly anticipated first-round clash in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament today at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Fighting Maroons head coach Goldwyn Monteverde stated that he has instructed his players to stay focused on their goal of sweeping the first round of eliminations and not let their emotions affect their game.”
“We’ll prepare for them just as we do for every opponent. Emotions are always part of the game, but our focus remains on executing the details and playing instinctively for the full 40 minutes,” Monteverde said.
“Consistency across all four quarters is important. We’ve had games with strong starts but weak finishes, and vice versa. To improve, we need to value each possession and maintain our intensity throughout the game,” he added.
Green Archers head coach Michael ‘Topex’ Robinson, meanwhile, expressed his eagerness for the upcoming game against the Fighting Maroons, acknowledging the valuable lessons his team can learn from facing their fierce rivals.
“We are excited. UP is gonna be somebody that we’re gonna learn from. We never really call them our enemy, but we always call them our worthy rivals because their strength is our weakness,” Robinson said.
“Kami rin excited kaming makalaban ang UP because ang sarap ng feeling ‘eh,” he added. “We just wanna enjoy it, and we just wanna compete against the best team in college.”
The Fighting Maroons will enter the game with a perfect 6-0 win-loss slate, while the Green Archers are just behind them with a 5-1 win-loss card.
This will be the first UAAP encounter between the Fighting Maroons and the Green Archers since their UAAP Season 86 men’s basketball tournament finals encounter, which was won by DLSU in three games.
The post Clash of the Titans: UP, DLSU face off in UAAP Finals rematch first appeared on Fastbreak.
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