Scotty NTumba of University of San Carlos completes a dunk against University of Cebu defenders in their quarterfinal match of the 16th Cesafi men’s basketball tournament at the Cebu Coliseum last night.
(CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
The University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers and the defending champions University of San Carlos (USC) Warriors booked their spots in the Final Four after defeating their respective rivals in the quarterfinals of the 16th Cesafi men’s basketball tournament last night at the Cebu Coliseum.
The third seeded Green Lancers cruised to the next round with a 98–73 rout of the sixth-seed, the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Panthers while the fourth-seeded Warriors edged the University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters, 68–66.
Warriors’ swingman Victor Rabat proved to be the difference-maker as he made three three-pointers in the last three minutes of the closely-fought game, but none more crucial than the one he drained from the right wing that pushed their lead 66–61, with 34 seconds to go.
UC guard Justine Dacalos trimmed it down to two, 64–66, with a three of his own four seconds later but USC’s Cameroonian center, Scotty Ntumba, responded with a putback off a missed jumper by Conrad Catapusan to raise it back to 68–64, time down to 14.1 seconds.
The Webmasters pulled to within two after Gileant Delator made two from the line with 12.8 seconds remaining. However, UC had trouble getting into the penalty situation and did not do so until they fouled USC’s Ian Tagapan with only 1.8 ticks left.
Tagapan missed both charities but Dacalos’ half court heave went nowhere, to give USC the win.
Kevin Oleodo and Ntumba had 14 points each with the latter adding 12 boards. Rabat ended up with 10.
In the first game, Tristan Albina, UV’s prized rookie recruit from Dumaguete City who was recently crowned as the Three-Point Champion of the All Star Festivities, picked up right where he left off as he buried four three-pointers en route to scoring a team-high 18 points.