San Beda head coach Boyet Fernandez is taking his team’s shock 68-54 loss to Mapua as a big lesson heading to the final stretch of the eliminations and the playoffs.

The stunning loss not only gave the Red Lions their first taste of defeat in seven games but also showed the flaws of the young squad – something that they can still work on in time for their last two games in the eliminations.

“We'll take it as a lesson for all of us. We'll look at the tape tonight and we'll see where we had some mistakes. Yung stats hindi naman glaring eh, it’s just that we only had six assists today and we missed so many shots,” said Fernandez after the game.

With their offense struggling all game long, San Beda veered away from their system and resorted to playing one-on-one, evident in the team’s only six assists and 33-percent shooting from the field.

The Cardinals defense also bothered the team’s best scorer in James Kwekuteye who still finished with 14 points but shot a measly 6-of-21 clip from the field.

“There were some miscommunications in the execution. We just have to learn from that,” Fernandez explained. “Congratulations to Mapua, they did a good job. Coach Randy did a good job today and we simply lost this game.”

San Beda absorbed its first loss and could be in danger of missing the outright semis slot if it drops one of its remaining games against College of St. Benilde on Tuesday and Letran on Friday.

If not, the Red Lions must hope that the Cardinals also lose their last game against Lyceum as a tie at the second spot between the two teams will have the latter taking the outright semis incentive.

There was no sense of panic in Fernandez’s voice however, saying that their fortunes are still within their hands.

“We'll just go back to the drawing board and prepare ourselves against Saint Benilde in the next two games. I know it will be tough for us but well, ganyan talaga eh. Bilog ang bola.”