AdU Lady Falcons and Jessica Galanza UAAP78 WV Round 1 Recap and Review

At the end of the first round of UAAP Season 78 Women’s Volleyball Tournament, the Adamson University Lady Falcons (AdU LF) has a 3-4 record, which puts them in 7^th place among the eight schools. With UP Lady Maroons and UST Tigresses peaking at the latter part of the first round, ADU LF is in danger of not making it into the Final Four for the second straight year and might end up not higher than 7^th place this season.

The level of competition this season is SO HIGH that it has become so UNPREDICTABLE, where no team is unbeaten and the supposed ‘underdog’ could win over the ‘stronger’ team.

I have already written a post related to the ADU LF entitled as THE WOES OF THE ADU LF. This is about half-way through the first round when they were on a four-game losing streak (1-4 record). I made a checklist of why they are almost at the bottom of the team standings. Basically, those were constructive criticisms meant to make the whole team realize of what to work and improve on. Otherwise, they are really doomed. I’ll go back to that checklist and let’s see if at the end of the first round and with 3-4 record, they have solved the problems. And THEN we will discuss about Jessica ‘Jema’ Galanza’s individual performance so far and their team statistics.

1.       Error Party – This is what haunts them in almost every game… Imagine, you are bound to work hard for your own point but you suddenly negate that with giving more points to your opposing team, thanks to your OWN errors. When you commit so much in a game, that, BTW could spell the difference between a win and a loss is pretty glaring. Whether it’d be on the unsuccessful receptions and digs to net touch and miss hits… it’s like you are playing with a gun on your head and all it is waiting for is the trigger to be pulled. Have they addressed it in the first round? You know what’s hilarious? Even in their game against the UE Lady Warriors, they helped add 15 points to UE’s 22 points in the first set. How generous of them, right? They could actually minimize it as evident in the sets they won in their seven games. But still, an average of 26.71 unforced errors per game is not a joke. Unless they wake up and realize that it’s way past December and gift-giving, 7 is not going to be their lucky number. Rating: 2/5

2.       Weak Roque-Dacoron-Emnas frontline – Again, if you have read my previous post THE WOES OF ADU LF, I have mentioned how weak this particular rotation is in offense. When your number one scoring option is on the back row, you need someone in front to fill in the place she was at until she comes back. Roque is the one assigned to that significant task. I said prior to their game against FEU, that Roque hasn’t been stepping up to come as close, if not equal, to Jema’s contributions to the team in both offense and floor defense. I thought maybe she has not gotten her groove yet or adjusted completely to their plays, or worse, that’s as much as she got. I was actually slapped in the face and proven wrong when she had her career-high game against FEU where they won in five sets. She scored higher than Jema, which means two out of the seven games where Jema wasn’t the leading scorer of the team, Roque was the firepower. I hope she becomes consistent and she will improve more in both her offense and defense. Maybe she can also make her back row attacks deadly. Rating: 3/5

3.       Inconsistent Middle-hitters – Dacoron and Alkuino are not as effective and efficient as they SHOULD be. A part of this problem is the lack of good plays given to them because it’s much more on the open, then on the opposite. Other than the lack of offense from the middle, there’s also the countless errors (i.e. net touch, etc) especially by Dacoron. She must feel really bad… imagine, you are not much of help to the offense, and THEN you are contributing points to the other team instead of your OWN. Can I also point out that Alkuino is a freaking veteran and on her last playing year? Unless these two can have their breakout games in the second round, it’s going to be a hopeless case for the ADU LF to land in the Final Four, though Dacoron had clean strong hits in their game against UE and Alkuino also had hers in some of their games BUT still, it’s not enough. They have to set the bar HIGHER because if they are pitted against the middles of other teams (except UE), they are in the bottom. Truth be told. Rating: 2/5

4.       Weak and Open-centric Setter  - When your team’s playmaker is the weakest player, you have to pack your bags and dare not dream of even having the slightest chance of a Final Four comeback. Other teams would not scout the setter of ADU LF because they already know that she’s open-centric and she is SO lacking in set variation. I don’t really mind her giving most of the sets (whether good or bad ones) to Jema especially when Jema has hot-hands-kind-of-game BUT when there are instances that the middle hitters can have those sets, GIVE IT TO THEM! She’s not only causing the middle hitters lose their confidence, she’s also making the team’s offense built solely on attacks from the outside hitters. That would mean, if the opposing team can shut off the open spikers, they are pretty much shutting off the WHOLE offense of ADU LF. With Dacoron and Alkuino’s height, she could actually utilize it. That’d be more effective if she only KNEW the RIGHT thing to do especially during crucial moments. As I have said, I am not looking forward to her setting… to think this is only her fourth playing year and she has one more year ahead. The nightmare! I would be excited once she’s going to be replaced… not unless she becomes a SMART setter. Rating: 2/5

5.       Soon-to-be, if not already, ignorant coaching staff – On-court adjustment is bad, most of the time-outs were miss-timed, poor substitution decisions and game plan executions, internal problem, etc. Can I say that Meneses is, in my opinion, the weakest head coach among them all? What about coach Vicente of UE? Well, he is actually a ‘better’ coach. It just so happens that the Lady Warriors players are not better than the LF’s, which explains why ADU LF is still lucky hanging its balance in the 7^th place just a little ahead of UE. Trust me, if coach Vicente is LF’s head coach right now, he would probably be leading the ADU LF in a MUCH better position in the team standings. And it’s just not about him… it’s the whole coaching staff. I am not sure if they are just too lazy, or they are dead-on ignorant or stupid. I’m being harsh, I know. That’s what I am seeing. I want to be wrong though but unless it would translate to wins and not losses, the management should probably find a better coaching staff for next seasons to come. Rating: 2/5

6.       Inconsistency and attitude of the almost-undeserving team captain – In all fairness, I was really so critical of Paat in my previous post. Who could blame me though? She’s the team captain, so she should ACT like a true leader and LEAD by example. To give her credit though, she played better in their last two games against FEU and UE compared to their five games prior. BUT it’s not as good as her performance and form as in the last season. I don’t know why it seems like her game has downgraded, when in fact, she should have been MUCH better this season than last year. You see, Jema is the STAR player of ADU LF (which she very much deserves) and Roque is slowly stepping up to help Jema. Both of them, including Tempiatura, are now playing way above the level that Paat is playing right now. She’s being outshone by them and that’s not a good sign as a team captain. I’m not saying that she should score more than Jema or Roque. Whatever performance she has in the first round, if she wants to LEAD their team into the Final Four, she NEEDS to play ABOVE and BEYOND this second round. Like I also pointed out, no matter how high scoring Jema and Roque could be, the team is not going anywhere up if she plays like a non-factor. UTANG NA LOOB! Ayokong pasanin ni Jema ang buong ADU LF at magcuracha sya. Jema’s brilliance is SO wasted being in the current state of team she is in. Maybe, she should consider transferring if it doesn’t work out? Rating: 3/5

7.       Famous patented ADU LF floor defense is MIA – When I wrote my previous post THE WOES OF ADU LF, I said that “Don’t let the statistics fool you.” At that time, ADU LF and their libero Tempiatura were the #1 Best Digger, which didn’t translate to their record 3-4. It wasn’t evident. Now, after the first round… the team fell down to #5 and Tempiatura to #3. Imagine, if they were #1 but the ever famous patented ADU LF floor defense wasn’t SO evident, how much more now? How about a whole week of training JUST on floor defense? In fairness, Tempiatura is doing a decent but not spectacular job… and it’s a good thing that she’s getting help from Jema. What I love about Jema is, she’s only one of the very FEW open spikers in UAAP Season 78 WV whose floor defense and reception is as good as a libero. The problem is, the other players are not doing as well as these two. Rating: 3/5

8.       Lack in Blocking – Gone are the days when Paat was a threat on the net. Even Dacoron is not doing well in blocking, she’s only the #6 Best Blocker (though she was once ranked as the #1 Best Blocker). Alkuino is nowhere in the Top 10. You know, if you’re not doing well in digging, why not do better in blocking so there would be no balls to dig?! So, I’ll define chaos right now… that is if you suck in blocking and then you are no better in digging. You’re done for. Rating: 3/5

9.       Perfect the back row attacks of Galanza and Paat – I have seen them do their back row attacks… but it’s not as deadly as it SHOULD be, though Jema has one decent kill from the back row during their game against UP. You know, back row is there as an alternative source of offense… so, if you want to really utilize it, you should make sure that it’s going to be EFFECTIVE. They NEED to PERFECT it because if they do, it can be part of certain plays in crucial moments. And just imagine if both of them can kill it from there… not to mention that we have seen Roque do back row attacks too which are at par with theirs. Remember their rotation… Roque-Dacoron-Emnas on the front line while Pat and Jema are on the back row… If Emnas is smart and skillful enough, she could and would be going to UTILIZE the two hitters on the front row, as well as the two in the back row. Not to mention that Tempiatura (or Lebumfacil) would be there for coverage. But seeing the way they were on the first round... I doubt if they would be able to execute it well. It’ll be a welcomed help though if they could. Rating 3/5

Overall Rating: 2.56/5 – passed but nowhere near excellence

ADU LF’s Team Statistics is spot-on why the team is currently ranked #7 after the first round. I’m not surprise at all. Now, here are two tables: one is for the TEAM statistics and ranking while the other is for Jema’s. We are going to compare and contrast the tables and let’s see why in spite of Jema’s seemingly good performance individually, it doesn’t reflect on the whole team’s current state.

Table 1 Team Statistics and Ranking

Rank of Skill	Made/Total Attempts	Success Rate or Average
#5 Best Spiker	299 spikes / 960	31.15%
#5 Best Blocker	45 kill blocks / 390	1.67 / set
#7 Best Server	40 aces / 569	1.48 / set
#5 Best Digger	196 digs / 1111	7.26 / set
#5 Best Setter	163 running sets / 804	6.04 / set
#7 Best Receiver	107 excellent receptions / 561	8.91 / set

Table 2 Jema Galanza Statistics and Ranking

Rank	Made/Total Attempts	Success Rate or Average
#2 Best Scorer	118 points (107 attacks, 4 blocks, 7 serves)	16.86 pts. / game
#6 Best Spiker	107 spikes / 306	34.97%
#8 Best Digger	44 digs / 157	1.63 / set
#9 Best Receiver	34 excellent receptions / 140	n/a

Out of the 384 points produced by the ADU LF through the scoring skills spiking, blocking and service, 118 came from Jema. That means she contributed to the 30.73% of ADU LF total points in the first round, excluding the points from the unforced errors of their opponents. Now, this is a good thing because Jema is not actually carrying the whole team as it seems to be. The combined points of Paat and Roque make up for an additional 44.79% while the middles Dacoron and Alkuino have a combined 16.41%. But still, Jema is pretty much the scoring machine of ADU LF. She would not have ranked #1 Best Scorer before and #2 at the present for nothing. If the opposing team succeed in shutting her off, it’d be lesser hassle to beat ADU LF.

Next up is the success rate of the attacks. I already quite expected it that Jema’s individual success rate (34.97%) is higher than that of the whole team’s (31.15%). The ranking speaks differently though. So, it’s not that bad… for a team not making it to the Final Four.

With blocking, they could have done better. 14 out of the 45 blocks is from Dacoron while 10 blocks were from Paat. Alkuino, the other middle blocker, only contributes 6 - the same as Roque. Paat and Alkuino should step up more to help Dacoron, since they are also the taller ones. As with Jema, she only has 4 block points, which is not as much.

Interestingly, service ace is where Paat excels best. She’s ranked #6 Best Server in the first round. 13 out of the 40 service aces by ADU LF came from her. Jema has 7, Roque has 6 and Alkuino has 5. Interestingly enough, the whole team’s ranking at #5 in this skill is higher than Paat’s. Not bad for a team that’s not going to make it in the Final Four.

With setting, Emnas is ranked #4 with 156 running sets while the team is ranked #5. Again, the number 5 will not make the Final Four cut. But really? Emnas is doing statistically BETTER than what it seems like. Who would have thought?

Again, digging is the skill ADU LF is always known for. The team is famous for it. At the earlier part of the first round, the team was ranked #1… not until the second half of the first round when things got worse. By the end of it, they are ranked only at #5, which is a shame actually for a team that have always excelled the most in this skill. Interestingly, Tempiatura’s ranking is higher than with the team’s.  As I have already mentioned earlier, Tempiatura was ranked #1 before but went down to #3 now. But as this happens, Jema is kinda stepping in. She’s averaging 1.63 digs per set as to Tempiatura’s 2.30 digs per set. So, in a way, when Jema is in the back row, ADU LF has two liberos. Tempiatura and Galanza’s combined floor defense is easily the best thing about ADU LF’s floor defense. But as a whole, the team is not good enough. As a matter of fact, it’s way below their usual standards.

Some of ADU LF’s 187 error points were committed because of POOR receptions. So, I always knew they’d be ranked really really low, next to UE. Ranked at #7, the team is consistently struggling here the most. What’s very hilarious though is, they had more points off their own errors (again: some due to poor receptions) than their excellent receptions - 107. What is sort of unexpected though is the fact that Jema is kinda putting up libero-like numbers again. She has 34 excellent receptions while Tempiatura has 35.

Since both Jema and Tempiatura are pretty decent in their floor defense, ADU LF will be at its all-time full-on floor defense when the rotation puts Jema on the back row with Tempiatura. That would also mean that when Jema is on the front, Tempiatura should work twice harder on the back because Roque’s floor defense is not as good as Jema’s. In blocking, ADU LF is at its strongest rotation with a Paat-Roque-Dacoron frontline and weakest with Emnas-Galanza-Alkuino frontline. In offense, Jema is still the best option. But they have a much better chance of winning a game if these three - Jema, Pat and Roque play at their BEST, ALL at the same time. In serves, Paat should continue the way she’s serving while Jema and others should work on their service and make it more loaded and effective, and the team should have lesser service errors especially for Dacoron. Team’s Skill Rating: 3.5/5

Assessing the games they won and lost… they actually played bad against UE, FEU and UST even though they won. So, that means, they played even WORSE in the games they lost especially against NU and UP, committing a whooping 39 and 32 unforced errors, respectively. In the second round, if they still play like they did in their win against FEU and UST, it’s not going to work anymore especially against the teams that had beaten them in the first round. Unless they get their acts straight and right, unless they play way above the level that they did in their three wins, there’s not even a glimmer of hope for the team to make it in this season’s Final Four.

What about Jema Galanza? I have to admit, I was not fan girling over Jema last season as much as now. Like I said before in my previous post, I already noticed her last season, at that time, she was not yet the firepower of ADU LF since Amanda Villanueva was still playing. It’s only now that she’s getting the attention and hype. It’s only now that she’s being talked about. It’s just now that she has become the face of ADU LF. As a volleyball player, I already saw the glimpse of how brilliant she could be. And boy, she’s just starting to unleash it this season. I bet no one expected so much that she’s going to be consistently grind it up in the Best Scorer category. I don’t want to compare her with Bang Pineda, whom I also admire, and dub her as Bang Pineda 2.0. With her lesser weight and better form this season, Jema was cute then and she’s pretty now. Seriously, besides the looks though, I imagine what the game plan the other teams have whenever they face ADU LF… just shut Jema’s offense and then everything else in ADU LF would be paralyzed. You know what? Whenever ADU LF is playing SO bad and I get irritated SO much… you just have to see Jema on the TV screen and she would be a refreshing ray of sunshine brightening your mood. That actually happened SO many times in the first round. If we are going to breakdown her game though, let’s be objective and not be bias about it. Her statistics definitely reflects why she’s kind of having a taste of the spotlight. I always say that she’s not just a PRETTY face, in fact I kind of brag about it. FHM noticed her. And correct me if I’m wrong, MOST tweets or FB comments I see are of GUYS swooning over her, whether it’s her game or her face. GALING and GANDA are two words about Jema that flood our feeds. There are also gals like me who have a girl crush on her. Back to her game though, 90.68% of Jema’s offense comes from her attacks, only 5.93% from serves and 3.39% from blocks. She’s averaging 16.86 points, 1 serve and 0.57 block per game. This means that when she can’t score from her attacks, she has to produce somewhere else. Otherwise, she’s going to be a non-factor in the team’s offense. Thus, you are going to lose 30.73% of the team’s source of points excluding the opponent’s errors. If her team mates will not able to fill it in, it’s almost inevitable that they would be defeated. Jema has to continue producing more points to help her team and increase their chance of winning. It’s also better if she could really perfect her back row kill because she only has one clean hit from the back, so far. She also has to really work on her blocking. Having only 4 blocks is not much. Though Jema is almost a non-factor when it comes to net defense, she makes up for it through her floor defense. On the other hand, her services are more safe than effective. She should make it more loaded or she has to find a good placement for an ace or poor reception from their opponent. With the consistent inconsistency of the team, Jema should be more consistent… because if it’s not her, who else? Jema’s Performance Rating: 4/5

I have suggested that since ADU LF is not in a good place in the standings right now and with all the problems within the team that NEED to addressed, Jema is better off ADU. She should be playing in any of the other teams, except UE. Her talent is SO wasted in this team because they have been losing more and winning less. Is that even possible, for her to transfer and play for another team? Sadly, I guess not.

Jema is the saving grace why I’m still watching ADU LF’s games and supporting the team. It’s because of her that I’m not as all out on the DLSU Lady Spikers this season. If not for her, I wouldn’t care about her team at all!   

Prediction: ADU LF will end up in 6^th or 7^th place and Jema will end up as the 2^nd Best Scorer by the end of this season. I’d love to be proven wrong though. 

For Jema Galanza game highlights, I uploaded it on my Youtube channel. Please check out my playlist here: