Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin sees the lack of culture within the squad as the root cause of their early struggles in the UAAP Season 86 men’s basketball tournament. 

The defending champions found themselves with a 1-2 start, a far cry from their dominant campaign last season leading to the title.

It doesn’t help that Ateneo was leading in the first half of its 74-71 overtime defeat against Adamson last week, where they made only one field goal in the extra period. 

Ateneo also dropped its opening day match against National University before narrowly escaping rival De La Salle for its first win. 

“What is your culture? I think right now we haven't established that. What is the buy-in from the players? There are so many new players it's not that they're reluctant to buy in but there's an actual process you have to go through where you have to say this is what I want, this is what I want to be, this is who I want to be in the context of the team. We have players still going through that process and it's hard to get cohesive performances which we need and which we lack without that collective buy-in,” Baldwin said. 

“That story is much longer and much deeper than what I just said. You have to have a culture and right now we're still trying to create that, embed that, and then cement that. Process doesn't happen very quickly and for as many new players that we have, it is a difficult process,” he added. 

Baldwin also emphasized his expectations from their rookies to step up and make a good account of themselves as early as now. 

Though Chris Koon and Kai Ballungay have been taking turns to help Ateneo, the Blue Eagles are visibly struggling with lack of endgame poise in most of their matches. 

Before it becomes too late, Baldwin is urging his team to sort out the problem at hand and potential woes. 

“We better figure some things out about how important it is to be composed, how important it is to be mentally and physically tough as we were against La Salle. 

“You can't do it in one game and say that's who you are. That's just a lie. You got to do it over and over and for three and a half quarters, we weren’t,” he concluded.