La Salle secured the top seeding in the playoffs with nary a trouble after blasting a short-handed University of the Philippines, 97-46, in the PGFlex Invitational Basketball Tournament on Thursday Nov. 28, at the Paco Arena in Manila.
With only six players showing up for the Maroons due to various reasons, the Archers settled the business at hand right away, racing to a commanding 30-15 advantage in the first 10 minutes of play on the way to posting the largest winning margin in the pre-season tournament presented by Quintana.
Taking full advantage of UP’s manpower woes, the Taft-based squad hiked its lead to 71-28 and practically turned the game into a “warm up” as the Maroons were already huffing and puffing due to their limited rotation.
The win enabled the Archers to top the first phase of the semis round with a 7-1 mark while UP and Centro Escolar University finished second and third, respectively, with 5-3 and 4-4 marks.
The Archers, who got 14 points each from Justin Buenaventura, Russel Ogana and Bright Nwankwo, will face No. 4 Olivarez College in the knockout semis round on Tuesday, Dec. 3.
Battling for the other finals berth are UP and CEU.
The Olivarez Sea Lions took the No. 4 spot via a three-game sweep of the second round of the elims with a 79-68 victory over Immaculada Concepcion College (Caloocan).
They finished tied for fourth to sixth places at 4-4 with ICC and Manila Central University but the Sea Lions emerged with the better quotient.
The MCU Supremos closed out their campaign with a nail-biting 55-54 win over Adamson – thanks to Seanne Devon General who split his charities with only 30 ticks left.
Interestingly, it was General’s lone basket for the game in 21 minutes of play.
