The FEU Tamaraws had no reason to win this game, with their place in the Final Four already set in stone since last Saturday, so they turned to their bench for most of the contest. The DLSU Green Archers, on the other hand, were playing for their lives and badly needed a win to force a playoff for the last semifinal slot.

However, it was the Tamaraws who came out on top with a 71-68 win to finish the elimination round with an 11-3 record. FEU will enter the Final Four as the second seed with a twice-to-beat advantage and will face the streaking ADMU Blue Eagles.

The loss eliminated the Green Archers, who will finish the season with a lowly 6-8 slate after ending the first round with a 4-3 card. La Salle, UAAP Champions just two seasons ago, will miss the Final Four for the first time since 2011.

FEU head coach Nash Racela used this game to rest his stars and give his bench players more exposure, but he said that his goal was still to win the game. He shared, “The objective was to keep our players fresh for the next game. We made it clear during halftime that even with those objectives, we were still going for the win.”

“We try to win every time, but again we have intention of keeping our guys fresh in case we play on Saturday. Our intention talaga was to mind the minutes of Mac Belo, Mike Tolomia, Roger Pogoy,” added Racela.

Monbert Arong made the most of his extra load on offense and scored 13 points. Belo played just 13 minutes, but scored 10 points and grabbed five rebounds while Tolomia had just two points in 10 minutes. Pogoy, on the other hand, was the hero for the Tamaraws.

FEU trailed La Salle by as much as 15 points in the second half and by 12 with over seven minutes left to play, but Pogoy caught fire and brought them back into the game. Pogoy scored 11 straight points–his only points of the game–over a two minute span, highlighted by three three pointers, to give the Tamaraws a 63-61 lead with two and a half minutes left in the game.

The Green Archers, who built a double digit lead in each of their five second round losses, were unable to recover and did not take back the lead. La Salle could only trim FEU’s advantage to a single point on two occasions over the last minute and they struggled to execute on offense as well–even against FEU’s second and third string players. It was a woeful conclusion to the team’s disastrous second round and disappointing season overall as La Salle was expected to at least qualify for the Final Four.

Jeron Teng led DLSU with 20 points, nine rebounds, and five assists while Prince Rivero had 16 points and nine rebounds.

Moving on to the Final Four, Racela expects a tough match-up against Kiefer Ravena and the Blue Eagles which was a big factor in his decision to rest his key players against La Salle.

Racela said, “Ateneo has a tough team, they have improved a lot, and we just have to be ready. We have two days to prepare. Actually, we started preparing for them Monday palang.”

Here are the photos of the game by FCF’s Kenneth Panlilio: