Remember the Titans - UAAP Game 18 Ateneo 60 vs DLSU 65

Remember the Titans - UAAP Game 18 Ateneo 60 vs DLSU 65
by Rick Olivares

September 30, 2007
Araneta Coliseum

Last legs
At the end of the third quarter, there was this sickening knot developing in my stomach. Save for a 12-0 run from the 1:47 mark of the first quarter to the first two-and-a-half minutes of the second canto, the Ateneo Blue Eagles were unable to get into any sort of rhythm. They only strung up four unanswered points twice during the game as they groped for form and fluidity.

Not only did they have to fend off a pumped up Green Archers squad but they also had to worry about the rotation after the crippling calls on forwards Nonoy Baclao and Zion Laterre who were both whistled for two fouls apiece in the early goings. Bereft of their top rebounders and defensemen for much of the game, DLSU for the first time in five encounters this season, outrebounded Ateneo.

With Ford Arao also on the bench because of foul trouble, the Green Archers relentlessly shadowed the Blue Eagle guards and forced players like Rabah Al-Husseini and Mike Baldos who didn’t play much all season long to carry the team for extended stretches.

Although La Salle led for most of the game, the Blue Eagles remained within striking distance. With the match headed for another gritty finish all it would take for one team to move on was one big spurt.

There was some hope in the air when Baclao hit a bail out trey to cut down the lead 62-60, but the gallant Blue Eagles who refused to go away, who were frustrated time and again by spotty officiating, and who were tired from a grueling uphill climb dating back to the rubber match to determine the second seed, simply exhausted its endgame magic.

The season where we overachieved and dared to dream was over 65-60 to La Salle.

Scar tissue
Rainier Sison still carries the scars of 2001. The finals loss crosses his mind every now and then and he can only shake his head in dismay. While talking with his old teammates Larry Fonacier and Wesley Gonzales the other day, the three all agreed that if possible, they’d abandon playing in the pros to don the blue and white one more time. “No comparison at all,” emphasized Sison on the college game and playing for Ateneo. “But I thought this was our year.”

And I thought last year was ours too. Somehow October 2006 still haunts me and perhaps many others as well. And now you can add to that this season.

The goal was attained – a final four berth despite many unbelievers – but the team could have gone farther had it played its cards right. The loss to NU will go down as the turning point for the team’s fortunes. Of course, that isn’t entirely up to us. The best laid plans of eagles and men can go for naught when NABRO comes marching in.

How we fare in Season 71 which obviously is a long ways from now we don’t know. But the blueprints for next year and beyond were sown immediately afterwards in the Church of the Gesu. “I don’t like losing,” said the team’s main patron Manuel V. Pangilinan who went on to say how the team should toughen up and that no expense will be spared to make sure they bag that elusive championship.

Final roll call
If you attended the post-game Mass at the Gesu, save perhaps for a few moments, one might have come away thinking that the team had won. Unlike last year where some of the speeches by the graduating players choked everyone up, Ford Arao and Zion Laterre found the courage to face the crowd and make people laugh. Although Ateneo coach Norman Black publicly endorsed Arao to Mr. Pangilinan’s PBA team Talk ‘n Text when he said, “There’s your center, sir,” the 6’4” Pangasinense has a career in hosting if he chooses so.

During the mid-90’s I chose not to care because it hurt that the teams were losing all the time. I stayed away for a few years and refused to even look at the game accounts in newspapers. But we are who we are and I bleed blue.

As the team faced the blue gallery for the singing of the alma mater hymn for the last time in this UAAP basketball season, I felt the tears burn my eyes. I held them back last year as the last person left in an abandoned Araneta Coliseum refusing to go home with the lights almost out. Last night I let a couple trail down. It isn’t even losing to La Salle. I think I’m beyond that. It’s the manner in which they lost -- robbed of an opportunity to play on even terms. But they went down fighting and sometimes that’s all you can ever ask.

If you look at my pre-season preview of the team, I thought well of our chances and penciled them for a final four berth. I liked them then and I sure like them now.

It was a most unlikely season, a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, but they gave us hope and something to cheer for, and good many pleasant memories…
… there was Ford Arao who finally arrived and was a rock underneath,
… there was Chris Tiu who was Mr. Last Two Minutes and added his name to our long line of great Ateneo shooting guards,
… there was Zion Laterre, super sub supreme who gave us second chances to win,
… there were the surprise newbie packages in Nonoy Baclao and Kirk Long who will go on to form the foundation of a great Blue Eagle team to come,
… there were the stars in the waiting in Yuri Escueta, Jobe Nkemakolam, and Eric Salamat who were magic,
… there were those thrilling final buzzer wins against Adamson, La Salle, and UST that we’ll be talking about for years,
… there was the Blue Babble Battalion who were like a badly-needed shot of adrenaline to the team and the crowd,
… and there was coach Norman Black. To paraphrase a line in the movie Remember the Titans, you’re not just a basketball coach, you are our coach!

And I believe that if the Blue Eagles were to play the Green Archers again in a field of fair play, they’re going to whoop them any time, any place.

And I believe we’ll learn from this and that we’ll be even more competitive next year.

So if you come across a fellow Atenean who is grieving like you and me, tell him or her, chin up because there’s good reason to believe.

Animo Ateneo!

Rick Olivares October 1, 2007

Author’s afterword:
Much thanks to Norman Black and Paolo Trillo for their time and patience and giving me the opportunity to get a close-up look at the team. Great job to the both of you as well as the rest of the coaching staff.
Thanks as well to Fr. Ben Nebres, S.J., Fr. Bert Ampil, S.J., and Sonia Araneta of the Office of PR and Communications. They were my own personal cheerleaders as they convinced me to stay and do these game accounts one more time. This is most likely the last UAAP Men's Basketball season I will write about. It has been a great ride.
Messers Jun Capistrano, Ricky Palou, Jun Dalandan, Jojo De La Rama, Jimmy Alabanza, and Robin Tong who offered their advice, insights, and news without hesitation.
To the Ateneo Sports Shooters for their camaraderie and their watching my back for batok-sabay-takbo wannabees.
To the Blue Eagles especially to my Team B boys Zion, Mike, Yuri, and Jobe.

One Big Fight!