San Beda Red Lions eye semis slot vs winless Keanzel Basketball
Games on Monday
(Filoil EcoOil Centre)
4:30 p.m. — Marinerong Pilipino-San Beda vs Keanzel Basketball
7:30 p.m. — CCI-Yengskivel vs Go Torakku-St. Clare
MARINERONG Pilipino-San Beda and Go Torakku-St. Clare eye to maximize their bonuses against lower-seeded squads for quick semifinal passages in the 2024 PBA D-League Aspirants’ Cup today at the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
The Red Lions, who settled for third after back-to-back losses at the end of elims, get a crack at it against the winless Keanzel Basketball at 4:30 p.m. followed by the fourth-seeded Saints’ same bid at 7:30 p.m. opposite No. 5 CCI-Yengskivel.
San Beda and St. Clare enjoy twice-to-beat incentives, needing just one try to roll into the best-of-three semis against Centro Escolar University (CEU) and EcoOil-La Salle, respectively.
The Green Archers, seeking a three-peat, swept the single-round elims at 5-0 as the Scorpions followed suit at 4-1 to clinch outright semifinal berths.
“We expected a tough week playing CEU and La Salle but the team is very positive and looking forward to playing in the quarters,” said coach Yuri Escueta as his wards want to gain a shot at CEU anew if it could repeat an easy 109-59 win over Keanzel in the elims.
“We needed those kinds of games to gauge our team and learn. It makes us humble and work harder.”
It’s the same mission for the Saints, heavily favored to repeat after a massive 118-84 win over CCI-Yensgkivel in the elims in a bid to earn the right to challenge the Green Archers.
But Keanzel and CCI are not keen on going down just like that with hopes of forcing another game to stay in semis contention. — John Bryan Ulanday