When Meralco Bolts selected UE Red Warriors scoring machine Alvin Pasaol with the ninth pick in the 2020 Rookie Draft, the expectation was that he would come in and provide scoring punch for a team that historically had not shot well from the outside.
There was reason for this belief.
Pasaol had once dropped 49 points in a UAAP game and, in his final college season, made the league's Mythical Five after averaging 20.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
During a brief stint in the minor pro league Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, he was good enough to average 15.0 points per game.
And early in his rookie PBA season, he came off the bench and scored 13 points in the fourth quarter of a Bolts win over the now-defunct Alaska Aces.
But that was as good as it got for Pasaol.
He struggled with his weight and failed to earn minutes in Norman Black's rotation, averaging just 2.3 points per game in only eight appearances in the recent Governors' Cup.
The ongoing PBA On Tour had been more of the same for Pasaol, as his three-point shooting percentage was at a lowly 14% after five games. He had even gone scoreless in Meralco's last two games.
But on Wednesday night against NLEX Road Warriors, Pasaol finally took a big step towards living up his potential, pouring in a team-high 25 points on 7-of-11 shooting from beyond the arc in a 96-83 Bolts win.
It's a much-needed confidence-booster for Pasaol, as it marks the first time he has scored more than 20 points in any PBA game, regular season or preseason.
"Yeah, Alvin -- he's been doing extra shooting for the last several days," Bolts assistant coach Reynel Hugnatan said in Tagalog after the game.
Hugnatan, the newest member of the Bolts' coaching staff after retiring as a player in the offseason, said he's been in Pasaol's ear about putting in the extra work after practice.
"The past few games, his three-point percentage wasn't very good," Hugnatan continued. "I told him to put in extra shooting.
"You can't just turn that on and off. You have to work on it all the time."
Pasaol complied, and he got an extra boost when his shots started falling early.
"When he made his first shot, I think that really helped his confidence," Hugnatan added. "They (NLEX) played a zone. Usually in a zone, they clog up under the basket, and after four to five passes that's what freed up Alvin."
Pasaol admitted he had been in a major shooting slump during the Tour, but got past it with the help of the coaches.
"I overcame it because of the trust of coach Nenad (Vucenic) and the coaching staff. I gained my confidence again," Pasaol said in Tagalog.
He added that Hugnatan's advice was spot on, stating: "That really helped me. The past three games I haven't shot well. I got my rhythm back from all that extra shooting."
That and a new diet.
Pasaol has a weight clause in his contract, and he has to keep his weight below a certain threshold.
"I have a target to meet so I'm working really hard to slim down," he explained. "I'm trying to see if this particular weight is okay for me."
Pasaol has looked trimmer than previous seasons, and he hasn't given up hope that he can once again become the player he was in college, adding: "Hopefully, it happens again, what happened to me in the UAAP.
"This preseason has really helped me because it helped build our confidence, especially those of us who didn't play much last year. It's a big help for me to start doing the things I used to do."