MANILA — Ateneo de Manila University caught a huge fish after dealing University of the Philippines its first loss of UAAP Season 86.

For Tab Baldwin, this was a great victory as they hope to mold their young squad to becoming as close as possible to the form of their championship roster last season.

“That is a very, very good win for our program,” he said following their win earlier today.

“It just feels good to win. We’ve been on the losing end a few times this year, that doesn’t feel good, so I can’t belittle the fact that we beat a team that’s six-and-zero.”

Baldwin then added that this victory is also a testament to how they have shown improvement in comparison to how they started the year, when they endured overtime losses against Far Eastern University and Adamson University.

“We’re all learning. It was our third attempt to win in an overtime [game], so I guess, hopefully, we figured a few things out about composure.”

“We certainly talked about that after the last two overtime losses. What did we do well enough to get into the overtime that we didn’t do in the overtime.”

But for the four-time UAAP champion coach, they should not be caught in the moment and instead must look at the bigger picture as the league heads into the second round of the season.

“I’m happy that we’re [the first] ones to knock them off, and they’ve done an awesome job getting at 6-0 with the league as tough as it is this year,” the former Gilas Pilipinas mentor bared.

“But you gotta keep things in the context of the entire season. It becomes meaningless if we don’t play good basketball to follow this up and keep improving as a team.”

“This is a great sign for the development of our team, but until we start showing consistency over more than just a couple of games, nobody should rest.”

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