‘Ky-money’ is ready to fly with the Blue and White.
For Kymani Ladi, seeing the mighty Ateneo Blue Eagles stumble in UAAP Season 87 was a difficult sight to forget.
Parading a younger-than-usual squad, the Eagles struggled mightily throughout last season to finish with a 4-10 record, their worst under head coach Tab Baldwin. As Ladi recalls, witnessing everything from the sidelines only added to his hunger to finally put on the team’s blue and white threads.
“Honestly, just seeing how the locker room was, and how the games went in Season 87, it just lit a fire in me to do well this season. It just makes me wanna prove to everyone that that’s not how we usually are,” Ladi said during the UAAP Season 88 basketball press conference held on Monday, September 15, at the Gloria Maris Shark’s Fin Restaurant in San Juan.
Ladi is one of Ateneo’s three one-and-done recruits for the upcoming Season 88, alongside Jaden Lazo and Dominic Escobar, who will join a toughened core led by now-sophomore Jared Bahay, breakout stars Shawn Tuano and Andrew Bongo, veteran Josh Lazaro, and a promising foreign student-athlete in Divine Adili.
Standing at six-foot-eight, Ladi is coming off a productive 2023-24 season with Merritt College, putting up 14.9 points and 7.7 rebounds before joining the Blue Eagles. Ladi was also quick to impress for Ateneo leading up to Season 88 after landing a Mythical Team spot in the AsiaBasket tournament, built on 14.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.1 steals per game.
“Kymani is a guy who can score it from all places on the court and gives us some rebounding edge as well. So we want [the one-and-dones] to do the job on both ends of the floor, and we have some faith that they can,” Baldwin said of Ladi, who also pointed out Lazo and Escobar’s ability to thrive on offense.
Ladi also pointed out a pair of intangibles aside from his skill sets, sharing, “Honestly, I can talk about my offensive abilities, but as far as for the team, I can bring communication, a lot of motivation.”
“I think it’s just playing my role really well for the team, and not just improving myself, but improving the team as well, so we’ll be ready.”
After a year of watching them from the sidelines, Kymani Ladi is now ready to help the Blue Eagles turn their fortunes around, all while trying to make the most of his lone year trying to learn under Baldwin’s meticulous tutelage.
“It’s been great, I think he really knows his stuff, and coming into this program, that’s why I kind of knew already. Even during our recruiting process, he was already teaching me stuff as he was recruiting me, and it made the decision easy.”
Banner images courtesy of the UAAP Media Bureau.