Red Lions aim to avoid rust

That’s the risk of going into the finals from a long break.

SAN Beda team manager Jude Roque vows to go all out in the NCAA finals.

San Beda University knows that the best-of-three finals series of Season 92 National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament is a different kind of battle.

Red Lions’ team manager Jude Roque said they want to the put their impressive feat of sweeping the double-round eliminations behind and play with more fire, more hunger in the finals against the survivor in the stepladder phase in the finals series starting 12 November at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Game 2 is set on 15 November while Game 3 is scheduled on 19 November.

Letran College clobbered San Sebastian College to face Lyceum of the Philippines University, which has a twice-to-beat advantage in the next round of the stepladder

Roque said their 18-0 record in the eliminations no longer has weight, especially in the finals where heart, hunger and desire have more premium than individual skills and talent.

“We forgot about our 18-0 mark in the eliminations because we know that the three teams who are in contention right now are all capable of beating us,” Roque said during the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the Amelie Hotel-Manila Tuesday.

“We had some tough games against those schools. We can’t be complacent against them.”

Roque said the long layoff, three weeks to be exact, might be counterproductive to their bid.

“Of course, the players are all still young and they have the tendency to relax and be overconfident. The long break also doesn’t work to their favor because they might think that it’s just a long vacation,” said Roque during the weekly session presented by San Miguel Corp., Braska Restaurant, Amelie Hotel and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation.

Roque cited the case of Lyceum, which also swept the eliminations only to be shocked by the Red Lions in the finals two years ago.

“That’s the risk of going into the finals from a long break,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t happen to us.”

During the three-week break, the Red Lions managed to play a friendly match with the Pasig Sta. Lucia Realtors, which they easily won.

“It’s not easy trying to find tune-up games because everybody is busy. The hard thing is that we’re having scrimmage against ourselves, sometimes against our Team B.”