DEFENDING champions De La Salle Green Archers go for a third straight victory in Season 80 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball tournament today with additional firepower in reigning league most valuable player Ben Mbala.

Missed the Archers’ first two games to play for the national team of Cameroon in the recent FIBA AfroBasket knockout rounds, Mbala is expected to make his season debut for La Salle when they face off with the Adamson Soaring Falcons in the 4 p.m. game at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Playing in the first game at 2 p.m. are the National University (NU) Bulldogs and the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Growling Tigers.

Mbala, who took the UAAP by storm last year in his tournament debut, is coming off an impressive showing in the FIBA-sanctioned tournament he participated in, averaging 21.8 points and 9.3 rebounds.

Unfortunately for Mbala and Cameroon, they failed to go past the quarterfinals, losing to eventual finalist Nigeria, 106-91.

Despite the quarterfinal loss, Mbala made a good account of himself, finishing with 32 points and 10 rebounds.

Now back in harness for La Salle, he is expected to give further boost to a team which has done well in its first two games and remained unscathed.

The Archers defeated NU in their last game, 115-109, with Ricci Rivero coming up clutch for his team.

With his team down by a point, 107-106, late in the game, Rivero strung up four straight points to give his team a three-point cushion, 110-107, with two minutes left on the clock.

He then followed it up with a nifty pass to older brother Prince, with 24 seconds to go, to extend their lead to five, 112-107, from which NU could not recover from.

Rivero finished with 20 points while Aljun Melecio and Jollo Go had 20 and 19 points, respectively.

Zeroing in on their game against Adamson with the possible return of Mbala, La Salle coach Aldin Ayo said they are not expecting too much adjustment.

“We expect the arrival of Ben to help us. The adjustment is not really big for us since the team adapted well while he was out,” said Mr. Ayo, whose wards are also eyeing to tie rivals Ateneo Blue Eagles (3-0) at the top of the standings with a win today.

SPOIL THE PARTY
Gunning to spoil the party for La Salle and the possible return of Mbala is Adamson (1-1), which barged into the win column in their game on Saturday against UST, 88-81.

Guard Rob Manalang showed the way for the Falcons with 19 points while being ably backstopped by Kurt Lojera (16 points) and Papi Sarr (10 points and four rebounds), who made his season debut after missing their first game.

“We played better in this game than our season debut. Hopefully we get to build on this win moving forward,” said Adamson coach Franz Pumaren after their win.

In the first game, NU (1-1) and UST (0-2) try to bounce back from the losses they absorbed previously.

Meanwhile, the UAAP press corps named Ateneo’s Thirdy Ravena as the first player of the week for Season 80.

Helping his team to a 3-0 record and averaging 18 points and nine rebounds, Ravena earned the nod for the weekly plum, edging University of the Philippines’ Paul Desiderio and Melecio of La Salle. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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