Altas down Heavy Bombers

Games today:

(Filoil EcoOil Centre)

10 a.m. — San Beda vs. EAC

12:20 p.m. — Lyceum vs. Letran

2:40 p.m. — Mapua vs. San Sebastian

University of Perpetual Help System Dalta knocked down Jose Rizal University, 72-61, for its fifth win in Season 99 National Collegiate Athletic Association men's basketball tournament at the Filoil EcoOil Centre yesterday.

Jun Roque led the Altas with 17 points as they improved to a 5-7 win-loss record.

Mark Omega capped a 9-0 salvo with under five minutes left in the second quarter then took charge for the rest of the game.

The Altas erected a 65-43 spread — their biggest — at the 8:25 mark of the fourth frame.

"All of them stepped up on defense. JRU is a physical team and you have to be tough," Perpetual head coach Myk Saguisuit said.

"I told the players they have to be mentally tough. They all knew they were playing against JRU so they have to be ready with the physicality in the game and it's a good thing they responded well," he added.

Christian Pagaran scored 15 points for Perpetual while Jielo Razon added eight points to his name.

Joshua Guiab's double-double game of 10 points and 10 rebounds wasn't enough as the Heavy Bombers slipped to fifth place with an 8-5 record.

In the first game, College of Saint Benilde breezed past Arellano University, 74-56 to strengthen their Final Four bid.

Reigning NCAA Most Valuable Player Will Gozum banged in 17 points and hauled nine rebounds as the Blazers improved to 8-4.

The Blazers capped a 12-0 run with a layup from Gozum with 28 seconds left in the second quarter to break a 28-28 deadlock and never looked back.

Saint Benilde punished Arellano inside with 52 points and Blazers head coach Charles Tiu credited the team's tempo during the match.

"We keep reminding them to defend properly. If we hold a team below 60 points, it means we're defending well," Tiu said.

"We tried to push the pace a little bit. I felt we had a deeper team than them. I saw their bigs getting a bit tired so we just tried to keep the tempo up and get some easy baskets."

Migs Oczon and Miggy Corteza both scored 11 points each with Mark Sangco tallying eight points and 11 rebounds.

Lorenz Capulong led Arellano with a double-double effort of 18 points and 12 rebounds but the Chiefs sank to a 2-10 mark for ninth spot in the leaderboard.