Search for 1st win continues for UP vs hungry UST

By Josiah Albelda Posted Jul 24th 2013

Will University of the Philippines finally break through with a win?

That question will be answered when the Fighting Maroons battle hungry University of Santo Tomas near the tailed of the 76th UAAP men's basketball tournament first round at 2 p.m. on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Armed with the youngest team in the league, UP has not won a single game after five outings this season, losing their matches by a margin of 12.8 points.

Now up against a Growling Tigers crew raring to bounce back from a loss, the Maroons are in trouble anew.

UST lost to spotless Far Eastern University, 77-67, last Sunday, and dropped to 3 - 2 as the Tigers' backcourt proved to be no match to the Tamaraws' trio of Terrence Romeo, RR Garcia and Mike Tolomia.

Romeo, Garcia and Tolomia abused UST's defense with a combined 48 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists as Ed Daquioag, Kim Lo and Clark Bautista proved to be not up to the task.

The Tigers' shallow bench also showed their weakness, too, with the reserves scoring only two of the team's 67 points in 36 minutes combined.

Karim Abdul and Kevin Ferrer carried the scoring cudgels last time out and will be expected to do the same against UP's frontline.

The game will air live on Studio 23, BALLS HD 167, uaapsports.tv and iwantv.com.ph with a same day replay at  9 p.m. on BALLS SkyCable channel 34/ Destiny Cable channel 36