The La Salle Green Archers must not be left flat-footed such as when they played Ateneo in their last encounter against the Blue Eagles. The Archers have four games left and needs to win all of them to assure them a spot in the Final Four. (BOB DUNGO JR.)

UAAP BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
Seniors              W      L         Pct
Ateneo                9       1         .900
FEU                     8       2        .800
UE                       6       4        .600
UST                     5       5        .500
La Salle              4       6        .400
UP                       3       7        .300
Adamson           3       7        .300
NU                       2       8        .200

Games Thursday
(Araneta Coliseum)
2 p.m. — Adamson vs FEU
4 p.m. — NU vs Ateneo

With its fourth straight defeat last Saturday, La Salle not only faces a must-win situation every time it goes out to play, the Archers must also pray that their chief rivals for the UAAP basketball tournament Final Four also stumble in the closing games of the season.

More difficult for the once-proud Archers, three of their remaining four games are against teams which are also trying to solidify their semifinal chances and therefore will be fierce and unrelenting competitors.

A misstep for La Salle would mean going through something it has never experienced before: missing the Final Four for the first time since the format was introduced in 1994.

La Salle did not help its cause at all when it absorbed an 83-78 upset loss to University of the Philippines, a team near the bottom of the standings but has built a reputation as the league’s giant killer.

UP has three wins in 10 games but its other victim was Ateneo, the UAAP leader whose only loss was against the Maroons.

La Salle totes a 4-6 win-loss card and is in fifth spot, putting its Final Four bid in utmost peril. The last time La Salle failed to make it to the semifinals was three years ago, but it was not for failing to perform well on the court, it was for fielding ineligible players for which it was banished for a year.

“Well, our destiny is now in our hands. We just have to win every game now,” said La Salle coach Franz Pumaren.

La Salle trails University of Santo Tomas and University of the East in the race for the last two Final Four slots. Ateneo (9-1) is in and FEU (8-2) is practically there.

The Tigers nearly pulled off an upset over defending champion Ateneo but bowed down eventually, 80-70, to slide to an even 5-5 card.

To reach the Final Four for the 15th time, the Archers will have to have a winning record against UE, UST, and FEU, the three teams they face successively in the coming days. Their last assignment will be against cellar-dweller National University but by then, that game might be a no-bearing one.

In losing to UP, Pumaren cited the team’s poor start against a team powered by former La Salle Greenhills star Mikee Reyes who exploded for 25 points.

“I couldn’t understand (our poor start). Before the game, I stressed to my players that we have to start strong and dictate the tempo but just like in our previous games, we started flat,” said Pumaren.