Bleachers Brew: Ateneo vs San Beda: 12 on the 12th

This appears in ateneo.edu

12 on the 12^th*

Ateneo wins its first title of 2011

by rick olivares w/pics by brosi

Sometimes I wondered if the stories I used to hear from the adult folk were war stories. Yep, war stories not sports ones.

As a kid in the Ateneo Grade School, the first sport you ever play is football and that explains this eternal fixation with the beautiful game. Baseball, I inherited from my grandfather and I played it extensively all the way to first year college.

Hoops. Now that was something I heard about when my dad, his classmates, friends, and officemates gathered around a case of beer and whatnot. I never really played it until well after college.

One of my dad’s best friends was a red-blooded Bedan. My Tito Ramon went to school in Mendiola for his entire school life. Plus, he was a cheerleader. That meant he saw the entire ruckus up front.

When people talk about Ateneo-San Beda games (it’s usually the 1960s & 70s NCAA matches because they were around for those), it’s many things --- Caloy Loyzaga, Rusty Cacho, three-peat after three-peat, rumbles, broken windshields, and well, more rumbles. Sometimes even school officials joined the fray! Imagine that.

For me, what comes to mind is 1977. It’s as if 1975 and 76 – back-to-back title years for the Blue Eagles in the old NCAA in case you were born yesterday – never happened. Some people, including those on the Ateneo team who played in 1977, live in a time warp.

The loss, in a closed-door match at the Araneta Coliseum, remains a painful memory and even overshadows the back-to-back crowns. In recent years, I sat down with many players from both sides who participated in the finals of that year. For the Bedans, it was a huge victory as they time and again kept the Ateneans from replicating a three-peat. For the Ateneans, some shake their heads at it while ruing the time when three players were on national duty. That game was against San Beda. It was the one loss in the elims. Had they swept it then it was bonfire time. Instead, it went to a finals series where Ateneo lost in the final seconds of play.

I’ve seen the game tape and when I think of that match, I always see Pons Valdez with his head hung low and Padim Israel sitting on the floor in shock.

So, much is made about the first finals meeting in a tournament between the two college teams since that year.

Heading into the Filoil Flying V Premier Cup championship match at the San Juan Arena, aside from all the flotsam of other people’s memories, I thought of two other things, oddly, an Ateneo-Letran match way back in 1987, and the first match of this year’s same Filoil tourney.

Now what does an Ateneo-Letran game over 20 years ago have to do with Ateneo-San Beda? Well, after both squads won their respective league titles in 1987 (Letran was led by Dong Libed and Jing Ruiz who is an assistant now to Leo Austria in Adamson), they met in the Reunion of Champions at the ULTRA. At that time, Ateneo and Letran was number one and two respectively in total NCAA hoops crowns and they had not met in a long time.

The game was over after a four minutes as the Blue Eagles dropped a 14-0 bomb on Letran. The Knights never got close.

When the current boys in blue and white opened their summer campaign, they faced off against the lads in red and white. The result was a heart-stopping win over San Beda in the final play with Kiefer Ravena and Greg Slaughter starring in the win.

Once more, this time in the final game of the summer, the two teams met and it’s for a title. Since the end of last season’s college wars, people have been trying to get the two to meet in a battle of champions. It never materialized for one reason or another. But I guess some things are fated to happen.

In a way, both squads weren’t whole. San Beda was missing Sudan Daniel and Anthony Semerad while Ateneo lost newbie Mark Tallo who went home disgusted after the lack of playing time. They were also tired having played several games over the past few days including a loss to NU in the semifinals of the Fr. Martin Cup the day before.

But no matter. They were here to play.

If you think the Blue Eagles played their best basketball against FEU in the semis, this time around, they played great on both sides of the court for the first time all summer.

After the first eight minutes of the game and the score at 21-6 in favor of Ateneo, I thought of the Ateneo-Letran game of long ago. Then-center Alex Araneta, Ateneo’s second-string center hit some huge shots in the early goings of the game before Letran sued for time. Cut to today, Kirk Long shadowed gunner Garvo Lanete enough to find out his deodorant brand and Greg Slaughter outmuscled Ola Adeogun inside. With outside-inside combo initially stopped, it was up to Dave Marcelo to get the Red Lions on the board.

He did but didn’t get much help. The cushion in the meantime was large enough to fend off the Bedan rally to come. After all, they had the weapons and talent to make it happen. But that first quarter was an incandescent one where almost every shot taken by Ateneo was in the flow. Everyone was in a zone offensively and defensively. That even caught Norman Black by surprise because they team felt flat in the last 15 minutes of the match against NU the day before. “We saved our energy for this,” he later quipped.

If there was anything that I thought would take the Blue Eagles out of their rhythm it was the bigs getting into foul trouble. Justin Chua picked up two quick ones and never returned. Ditto with Frank Golla, JP Erram, and Slaughter.

By the second quarter, SBC began to find their rhythm as Lanete and Adeogun, who reminds me of a young and raw Hakeem Olajuwon, chipped at the lead. And come halftime, they launched into a rousing rendition of the Indian Yell, perhaps the best yell in Philippine scholastic competition.

When the teams came out of their respective dugouts for the second half, the Red Lions had their game faces on. With their halftime show still ringing in their ears, the Bedans renewed their assault. After Dave Marcelo scored underneath, the score was 40-35.

When Slaughter went in for a two-handed stuff but was blocked from behind by Adeogun, the red army went nuts. Seated along the baseline. I looked at Greg’s face. He didn’t change his expression and instead ran back down on defense. I thought to myself, okay, he’s locked in and he’ll get back at Adeogun.

But it was Long who gave Ateneo breathing room when he nailed a triple at the apex of the rainbow for a 48-35 lead. I thought that Long struggled with his shooting throughout the summer and against the Tamaraws, it was his treys in the first quarter that propelled Ateneo to a lead they never surrendered.

Now that trey and two free throws later (after he got nailed by Lanete on the head ala Three Stooges out of frustration when Long poked the ball away for a turnover) put Ateneo up by 49-37. By third quarter’s end and the score at 54-41, I knew that the Blue Eagles had taken the best Red Lion chance of overhauling the deficit.

Looking at the Red Lions, I’ve seen them throttle teams en route to the finals. Now I could be wrong here but I think the missing pieces here (is not Sudan’s absence) are Rome de la Rosa and Kyle Pascual. Both having been turning up in missing persons reports (sorry Coach Chot, I gotta borrow that).

In NCAA Season 86, I thought they were just as crucial to San Beda’s campaign. They turned in quality minutes and some great scoring sock. This summer, they’ve just not been there.

One guy who made an impact was Juami Tiongson. Gotta feel for the guy with all the hullaballoo about Ravena and Tallo coming in. Four point guards in the Blue Eagles lineup? I was beginning to worry that I might have to borrow La Salle coach Dindo Pumaren’s quip about his guard-laden team being a security guard agency. But Juami, the at-times forgotten Eagle, played great (apart from his eight-second backcourt violation). He made shots, was solid at QB, and he played great defense when Emman Monfort hobbled a bit. Juami had the second best stat line for the Eagles where he shot 50% from the field (4-8) and 100% from the line (4-4) while pulling down 5 boards and serving up 2 assists.

The best stat line, of course, was Greg’s. He scored 14 points, hauled – as in literally hauled them down over that crack Red Lions frontline of Adeogun, Marcelo, and Jake Pascual – down 11 boards to go with 2 assists and 1 block. That’s like a bucket for every two minutes on the floor so you know that his teammates are trying to work the ball over to him. When Greg rattled in that line drive from the right corner elbow with 3:18 left and Adeogun rushing out, I thought that was huge. About a minute later, he even hung in the air – is that possible -- to field a last second pass by Ravena and make an equally tough shot over the outstretched arms of Lanete for a 71-53 lead.

Those were back-to-back baskets that put away a tough foe.

As Pau Siarot made one free throw in a cameo appearance and JP Erram dribbled out the clock for a 75-56 victory, Ateneo’s first ever Filoil Flying V Premier Cup win was in the bag. Norman marveled at how his team was able to hold the offensive juggernaut that is San Beda. “They normally average 70-plus points a game. When you hold them to 56, that means you played great defense on them,” said the coach who has now won a championship in every Metro Manila-based tourney. There’s the PCCL, UAAP, Nike Summer League, the Uni-Games, and now the Filoil Flying V Premier Cup. "It never gets old," said Black inside the dugout.

In case you have not been counting that’s a total of 12 trophies since 2007; the 12^th title coming on the 12^th day of June. The Blue Eagles began their summer campaign that seemed like eons ago against San Beda. And they closed out their pre-season games with a win over a tough and ancient foe. How’s that for perfect symmetry?

Oh, hey. He has 10 titles won in the PBA as well. And I do not know anyone coach with that kind of impressive haul (outside another Blue Eagle legend in Baby Dalupan who won 15 titles with Crispa, Great Taste Coffee, and Purefoods; 12 with UE; and 2 with Ateneo).

This title, of course, does not ease the pain on ’77 after all, we do not hang championship banners for tournaments outside the NCAA and UAAP. The old warhorses will continue to spin those yarns of three-peats and failed ones, of fights and rumbles, and of a great rivalry. But at least, we’ll have something to talk about. Until the UAAP Season 74 gets underway.

* Championships won since 2007: three UAAP Men's Basketball, three PCCL, three Uni-Games, one Fr. Martin's Cup, one Nike Summer League, and one Filoil Flying V Premier Cup.

With Frank Golla, one of my former students, inside the Ateneo dugout post-match.

With Greg and Paul. When I asked Greg how he felt winning his first title with Ateneo, the Big Fella said: "It sure feels good. Hope I can help with a few more."