Defense does not usually make the highlight reel. Some even say it is boring.
Defense is simple: stop the other team from doing what keeps most fans glued to the screen, scoring. It is not always pretty, but for the Adamson Soaring Falcons, at least at the start of UAAP Season 89, it is working.
The Soaring Falcons delivered another defensive masterclass on Saturday, Oct. 3, crushing the UST Growling Tigers, 85-57, to improve to 2-1 and strengthen their place in the Final Four race.
Adamson held UST to just 31.7% shooting from the field and a miserable 2-of-24 clip from three-point range. The Tigers also turned the ball over 20 times as the Falcons' pressure suffocated them from start to finish.
"I think that's the only way we could have a chance in the UAAP, if we really follow it and defend those other teams. Because if we don't do our part defensively, any given day they will all score 90, 100," Adamson head coach Nash Racela said after the game.
The Falcons looked like a team on a string, communicating sharply, rotating with purpose and consistently keeping opponents in front of them.
Through three games, Adamson leads the league in points allowed, giving up just 61.0 per game. Its opponents are shooting a league-low 33.33% from the field.
The Falcons also rank first in opponents' two-point shooting at 42.5% and three-point shooting at 18.67%, while allowing league lows of 19.33 perimeter points and 28.67 points in the paint per game.
The disruption does not stop with missed shots. Adamson is forcing opponents into 19.0 turnovers per game, a league-best mark. The Falcons have also done the best job of neutralizing opposing starters, who are averaging just 35.67 points per game against them.
This is largely due to Adamson's ability to control the tempo, slow the game down and force opposing teams to execute against set half-court defenses-a defensive identity they have fostered under Racela over the past four seasons.
The Falcons have already put that defense to the test against some of the UAAP's strongest teams in Season 89, beating UST convincingly and escaping FEU while losing by only five points to Ateneo, which managed just 73 points against them.
At the heart of that defensive identity is Precious Jonah, who has established himself as the league's premier rim protector to open the season..
The Adamson foreign student-athlete is averaging 4.33 blocks per game after swatting 13 shots through three games. He has done so against some of the UAAP's best big men, including UST's Collins Akowe, Ateneo's EJ Kapihe and FEU's Mo Konateh and Kirby Mongcopa.
"If you don't do your part defensively, then you'll see 30 points every quarter from those teams," Racela said. "Those are really talented teams. We just need to work defensively."
Monty Montebon ranks second in the league in steals at 3.33 per game after collecting 10 through three games, while Mat Edding has emerged as one of Adamson's most dependable perimeter defenders with 2.33 steals per game.
Even the Falcons' more offensively inclined players, including Ray Allen Torres, Matty Erolon and Earl Medina, have embraced the same defensive standard.
That may be Adamson's biggest advantage, especially against more formidable UAAP squads on paper.
The Falcons do not have the same star power or obvious go-to scorer as some of the UAAP's other contenders. Instead, they have built their identity around something that travels every game and does not depend on one player having a hot shooting night.
If Adamson keeps making opponents work this hard just to score, the Falcons may not need a superstar to shake up the UAAP hierarchy.
They just need to keep turning defense into wins.