The Battle
of the Necktie Brigade
Part One: The Big Mo
by rick olivares with pics by brosi gonzales
October 12, 2011
Araneta Coliseum
The more things change, the more they
stay the same.
Tim Cone entered the B-Meg Derby Ace
Llamados’ dugout. The players and team management applauded and the American
coach managed a smile.
“Where’s everybody?” he asked noticing
that forwards Rafi Reavis and Marc Pingris were missing.
“In the shower, coach.” offered one of
the ball boys.
“Everybody get back here for a while,”
said Cone. “Let’s have a quick talk then you can go back to your shower and so
you can all get home.”
“There are going to be some changes
around here.”
in the middle of the dugout the
jerseys of the players were neatly stacked atop one another on one side with
the trunks piled up next to them.
Reavis entered fresh from the shower
hardly covering himself with a towel. He grinned at the coach who grinned right
back.
“So is he (Reavis) the Willie over
here?” wondered Cone who was referring to Willie Miller who once played for him
in his former ballclub Alaska.
Alaska.
Once his team settled down, Cone
addressed the silence: “I’d like to thank you for coming out the way you did
tonight. You knew this game meant a lot to me and I thank you for all the
support.”
Gathered around Cone were three of his
former players in Alaska – Joe Devance and the retired Johnny Abarrientos and
Jeff Cariaso who were both part of his coaching staff. Once the new B-Meg coach
was done, he gathered his team for one last huddle: “One. Two. Three.”
“Together!” chorused the entire
Llamados team.
A month into his new job and the San
Miguel Corporation ballclub had all the feel of his old Alaska team -- from the
coach to the patented neckties to the triangle offense to the man-to-man
defense right down to the team cheer of “together.”
And the game had all the feel of
playing against a mirror image.
Following a JR Reyes bank shot that
gave the Aces a 15-2 lead with 4:20 left in the first quarter, Cone had visions
of a 35-blowout in the offing. He expected Alaska to break out of the gates
like gangbusters. Why not? After all this game was not just an ordinary game
(not matter how hard he tried to downplay it).
Alaska owner Wilfred Uytengsu was
flying in from Kona, Hawaii (where he took part in the Ironman World Championships), yet he texted his coaching staff and players
several times about winning this game. “Win at all costs kami,” shared point
guard LA Tenorio two hours before tip off. “Buong linggo, it lang ang
pinaguusapan sa practice.”
While Alaska gave Cone a send off with
a press conference, it was a painful exercise for Uytengsu who felt betrayed by
his former coach’s departure. A team official who asked to remain anonymous
said that the team owner had stood beside Tim when other stakeholders demanded
his firing during the lean years and this was how Cone repaid for his faith.
“We want to win this game and so will
he (Cone),” succinctly described Joel Banal, Cone’s longtime lieutenant who
replaced him as the Aces’ coach. And early on, it looked like Alaska was indeed
on its way to its first win in two outings.
Alaska's early lead was good while B-Meg
misfired on 22.2% field goal shooting in the first quarter. Running a hybrid
offense that took bits and pieces of the Alaska’s famed triangle offense that
was infused with pick and rolls, post ups and kick outs, Alaska looked like its
deadly old self.
However with the firepower at Cone’s
disposal in James and Roger Yap, Peter June Simon, Kerby Raymundo and Devance,
it was a matter of time before their shots fell.
B-Meg began the second period staring
at a 21-9 deficit. After James Yap scored on a layup, Josh Urbiztondo nailed a
trey that was a harbinger of things to come. The Llamados pounced on Alaska’s
second unit and shot for 61% to come within a bucket of tying the match at
37-35.
Come the third period, B-Meg countered
the 13-point explosion by Sonny Thoss and Cyrus Baguio with a similar salvo
from Simon and Raymundo. After a trey by Simon that gave the Llamados a 55-52
lead, Cone’s team would remain in the driver’s seat all the way to the game’s
end.
The Aces stayed within striking
distance of overhauling the deficit following a triple by Tenorio for a 69-66
B-Meg lead. But Urbiztondo, the refugee from the now defunct Air21 found
himself wide open on three consecutive possessions when no Alaska player
rotated over to him.
The result were three devastating
three-pointers that sustained B-Meg’s momentum that propelled them to a 81-75
victory.
It was B-Meg’s first win in two
matches and Cone’s first outside Alaska where he coached for 22 years and won
13 titles. “I have bittersweet feelings over this,” confided Cone on his way to
the dugout following a post-match interview inside the media room. “But you
have to get over things real quick or else people will walk all over you.”
During his quick post-match meeting,
Cone thanked the coaching staff for dressing nattily complete with neckties.
The idea of wearing neckties was company general manager Norman Ramos’ and it
was meant to pay tribute to Cone and show him solidarity.
“I believe that this won’t be the
first and last time we will be wearing neckties,” said a giddy Ramos outside
the team locker room.
After the team broke the huddle, Cone
raised his hand to exclaim, “Hold up, fellas.”
“Any one here met ‘Big Mo?’”
Murmurs of uncertainty answered him.
“’Big Mo’ is for “big momentum,” he
revealed to ohhs and ahhs. “And we have to ride ‘Big Mo” all the way to our
next game which is Meralco. And I understand that there is a big rivalry going
on here since your former coach is now on the other side (there is also a corporate
rivalry between the SMC group and the MVP group of companies to which Meralco
belongs). Now, let’s make sure that we keep this going.”
The more things change the more they
stay the same.
B-Meg
81 – Yap James 20, Urbiztondo 12, Raymundo 12, Simon 11, Devance 10, Reavis
8, Pingris 6, Ferriols 2, Barroca 0, Acuña 0, Maierhofer 0, Yap Roger 0.
Alaska
75 – Thoss 18, Reyes 15, Tenorio 11, Baguio 10, dela Cruz 9, Baracael 4,
Custodio 4, Eman 3, Bugia 1, Cablay 0.
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