Bulldogs Tame Red Lions

Lining up without established players Emmanuel Mbe and Joseph Terso, many saw this National University Bulldogs squad as a one-man Bobby Ray Parks team. Against the defending NCAA champions, his supporting cast decided to disprove that notion.

Parks led four other Bulldogs in double digit scoring with 20 points while Robby Celiz canned a dagger of a triple to give NU the 83-80 win over the San Beda College Red Lions in the 2011 FilOil Flying V Pre-Season Premier Cup last Saturday, April 16, at the Arena in San Juan City.

It was NU’s second win of the tournament after its drubbing of UST, while San Beda slumped to a win and two losses, both coming against UAAP teams.

Parks also had eight rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block, while also making all seven of his charities. Denice Villamor poured in 14 to go with his seven rebounds, Gelo Alolino added 12, while Jul-Ashri Ignacio and Celiz scored 11 each.

Oda Adeogun had his usual double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds this outing, while Garvo Lanete dropped 19, though he needed 15 shots to do so. Baser Amer had seven points, six assists and two steals in the strongest game of his rookie campaign so far.

San Beda’s full-court press worked wonders early on as the Red Lions held a 34-27 lead halfway through the second quarter. Celiz, though, scored via a layup when San Beda had just four players on the court due to a substitution error that got San Beda head coach Frankie Lim fuming.

That triggered a 9-0 blast from the Bulldogs, good for a 36-34 lead, but a triple by Amer and a pair of Adeogun free throws swung things back San Beda’s way, 39-38, entering halftime.

Both sides would trade baskets for most of the third, but NU didn’t buckle, which led their coach, Eric Altamirano to say after the game, “If there’s one thing I’m proud of, it’s their [the team's] composure.”

Instead, the Bulldogs would unleash a run of their own, scoring 11 straight. That prompted a timeout and a diagrammed play from Lim to get Anjo Caram an open triple before the end of the third quarter to stop the bleeding and cut into the NU lead, 63-56.

Though the Bulldogs’ run would continue in the fourth with back-to-back unanswered buckets, a 14-4 run, capped by an off-balance Kyle Pascual jumper, closed the gap to a solitary point, 71-70. Two Henri Betatene charities made it a three-point game, 73-70, but Garvo Lanete was there with a triple to knot things up with 4:48 left to play.

From then on, it would be back and forth basketball again. Adeogun took charge for the Red Lions at the two-minute mark. First, he dished out a nifty bounce pass to a backdoor cutting Kyle Pascual before scoring on a layup in transition to give San Beda an 80-77 edge. Parks then calmly rose up and hit a triple, though, to knot the count at 80 apiece with just 62 seconds left in regulation.

San Beda went to its rookie floor general, Baser Amer, with 44 seconds, but missed a triple. Anthony Semerad was there to pull down the offensive rebound, though. With 27 seconds left, Adeogun drove, spun in the lane, but had the ball knocked away. The Bulldogs then found Celiz, one of two former Rizal Technological University transferees now in NU, who knocked down a triple in transition, giving his squad a three-point lead with 5.4 seconds left.

After burning its last two timeouts, San Beda went to Lanete, who missed his three-point attempt thanks in part to the NU defense.

Though the Red Lions would move the ball around better, boasting of 20 assists to just 14 for the Bulldogs, NU had more than double the second-chance points of San Beda.

From: Inboundpass.com