Team Standings San Sebastian 5-0 Jose Rizal 5-0 San Beda 5-1 Letran 3-3 St. Benilde 3-3 Arellano U 2-3 EAC 1-4 AUF 1-4 Mapua 1-4 Perpetual Help 1-5 San Sebastian guns for the solo lead as it takes on Angele U Foundation even as Emilio Aguinaldo seeks to follow up on its giant-sized win over Mapua recently as it collides with dangerous St. Benilde today in the 85th NCAA basketball tournament at The Arena in San Juan City.

The Stags, at joint first with the Jose Rizal Bombers on pristine 5-0 (win-loss) slates, are expected to leave no stones unturned when they take on the Great Danes in their 4 p.m. encounter on the same day President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address. San Sebastian will also ride the momentum of its 86-69 bashing of Arellano U a week ago against an AUF side, which owns a 1-4 slate, that is still reeling from a 53-82 rout suffered at the hands of last year’s losing finalist Jose Rizal. “We’ve learned our lesson, we’ll not take for granted any team anymore,” said San Sebastian coach Ato Agustin, whose charges nearly paid for their over confidence against the Generals two weeks back.

The Generals, who shocked the Cardinals, 80-69, Wednesday for their first win in five outings, will surely come into their 2 p.m. game against the Blazers oozing with confidence. “We’re happy we won our first game in the NCAA, we hope to carry the momentum of that win when we play St. Benilde,” said an ecstatic EAC athletic director and mentor Nomar Isla. EAC is expected to draw strength anew from the entertaining duo of John Santos and Argell Mendoza. Santos sizzled with 22 points in their Mapua win while Mendoza had 18 points, five assists and three steals that made up for his four turnovers—a facet of his game that slowly but surely improving.

But beating St. Benilde, which edged Perpetual Help, 64-63, Friday to accompany Letran at No. 4 on 3-3 cards, is easier said than done as the Taft-based school is also bent on enhancing their standings in the race to the Final Four. “I really feel we need to improve on a lot of things after what happened in our last game,” said St. Benilde coach Richard del Rosario. “I think some of the things we needed to do is to rebound more and make our outside shots.” Del Rosario, who was known for his rebounding, post defense and excellent work ethic when he was still in the pros, was referring to the Perpetual Help team that beat them in the battle of the boards (32-39) and from behind the arc where they made none out of 11 tries as against the latter draining seven of 26 attempts. “If we could do that, I think we would have a chance of finishing big this season,” added del Rosario.