Jaren Brown leads Ateneo Blue Eagles to the Ultimate 4. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.internet
Ateneo shall be in search of to increase its protection of the UAAP males’s basketball crown on Saturday in opposition to the No. 1 College of the Philippines with a strolling wounded guard rotation.
That’s why rookie Jared Brown, contemplating how he stepped up within the first of three KO matches the Blue Eagles must survive to make it again to the finals, appears to be the primary man on the level for coach Tab Baldwin when Recreation 1 of that sequence in opposition to the Combating Maroons ideas off.
“We’re a bit banged up proper now,” Baldwin stated when requested of the conflict with UP, simply minutes after the Eagles routed Adamson, 70-48, in a playoff for fourth-seeding within the Ultimate 4 on Wednesday. “You don’t know Chris (Koon) is enjoying on a nasty foot, LeBron (Nieto) is limping and Gab Gomez has a damaged hand.”
And that’s one thing contemplating that Baldwin describes UP as “having essentially the most skilled group of guards that you just’d ever hope to have” that works nicely with a proficient frontline led by reigning Most Invaluable Participant Malick Diouf and the sensational Francis Lopez.
‘The underdogs’
“We’re undoubtedly the underdog. I don’t relish it, [and] UP gained’t take us frivolously,” Baldwin stated whilst he heaped praises on Brown for setting the tone of the rout of the Hovering Falcons. “They (Maroons) are too skilled, too clever and Gold [Monteverde] is a really intelligent man.”
Brown, a lefty, completed with 20 factors constructed round a four-for-seven clip from past three-point vary with 14 of his complete coming within the first two durations that had the Eagles operating full throttle the remainder of the way in which.
“I feel I used to be simply getting the pictures. My teammates have been simply discovering me the correct spots, and it was my job to simply knock them down,” stated Brown, who bounced again from a mediocre effort in opposition to La Salle. “I wanted to hit these in the present day. So yeah, fortunately they went in.”
Seasoned UAAP rookie
Baldwin, although, believes that Brown, a transferee from Westmont the place he was his faculty’s second-leading scorer with greater than 15 a recreation, was due for an enormous recreation, contemplating how his 5-foot-10 sentinel has been working to assist the staff.
“He’s a really humble man. And he offers credit score to his teammates and as he ought to. However on the finish of the day, he’s acquired to knock the shot down, and in the present day he acquired seems, and he was capable of knock them down,” Baldwin stated.
“The child works extraordinarily laborious on his shot. He introduced an excellent shot to this system,” stated the four-time UAAP champion coach. “And he works laborious on it day by day. And everyone’s gonna have an off day. However, you recognize, extra occasions than not, if he will get an open look, you can begin writing crooked numbers on the rating sheet.”
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