The UST Growling Tigers didn’t just win a basketball game. They cracked open the defending champions like a crab shell and picked them clean. 87–67, a demolition so thorough it felt less like a UAAP opener and more like a trailer for a monster movie.
Front and center in the carnage was Colin Akowe, the rookie who made Espana his new stomping ground by unleashing a stat line that looked straight out of a video game: 28 points, 17 rebounds, and a cool 60 percent from the floor.
That’s not a debut. That’s a ground-shaking entrance, the kind that rattles windows and makes other teams wonder if they’re next.
Akowe didn’t just score — he distorted the floor like gravity. UP’s frontcourt spent the night getting tossed around like action figures. Gani Stevens? Dragged into the paint and swallowed whole. The rest of the Diliman bigs? Chew toys.
From the first possession, this wasn’t “welcome to the league,” it was Akowe’s Welcome to My House game.
And the scary part? He wasn’t alone. Kyle Paranada tossed in 18 points, Nic Cabanero threw up 9 points and 5 boards, Gelo Crisostomo added 8 and 7, and former Tiger Cub Koji Buenaflor chipped in 7 in his debut. That’s a pack hunting in unison, one star pulling the gravity, everyone else feasting off the scraps.
So now, here we are: UST vs. La Salle.
The question hanging in neon lights above this matchup is simple — Can the Archers stop Colin Akowe?
Remember, UST just throttled the defending champs without their playmaker. Forthsky Padrigao — the UAAP’s 8th-best statistical performer last season at 8.7 points and 6 assists per game — didn’t even touch the floor in this massacre. UP still got smoked.
If you’re La Salle, the nightmare starts in the middle. Adamson’s man mountain, they called “Baby Boy”, Cedrick Manzano, already carved up the Archers’ interior defense for 19 points and 9 rebounds. If that’s the baseline, then what’s Akowe — a wrecking ball with legs — about to do?
So who goes in the cage with the behemoth tiger? Luis Pablo? Mike Phillips? Mason Amos?
Insiders whispered Bright Nwankwo as the secret weapon. In practices, he’s shown he can body up Akowe, stand his ground, shove back when others just crumble.
“Kayang itulak,” one observer claimed. Nwankwo only logged five minutes and two points against Adamson, but that might change real quick if La Salle wants any shot at keeping Akowe from eating the rim alive.
The Other Crisis: Taft’s Clunky Offense
Flip the floor, and the Archers have a different headache. Opening day, their offense looked like that Hoosiers movie scene where the coach makes them pass four times before shooting. Players hesitated, looked lost, burned the clock, and wound up with panic shots against a set defense.
The numbers are brutal: a flat 35 percent from the field, a low 25 percent from three. Out of 22 made buckets, 17 came off assists — a stat that screams “ball movement” but also “nobody can just go get a bucket.”
The Cool Cub Jacob Cortez and Motor Mike Phillips combined for 33 points, more than half of La Salle’s total output of 60.
And that’s the thing — guys like Vhoris Marasigan, Kean Baclaan, Earl Abadam, EJ Gollena, Doy Dungo, and JC Macalalag have too much juice to be this quiet.
The Taft upside is massive.
The downside is if they keep sputtering, La Salle’s playing catch-up while Akowe is busy eating up possessions and pulling UST to early huge leads.
So here it is. The Growling Espana Tigers just unveiled a rookie who looks less like a freshman and more like a potential rookie-MVP. And now, La Salle has to solve him in real time.
The question isn’t just whether the Archers can stop Colin Akowe.
The question is whether anyone in the UAAP can.
We will know this Saturday when La Salle meets UST at 4:30pm at the Big Dome.
ANIMO LA SALLE!
