“THE game is simple,” writes the remarkable sportswriter Pete Axthelm in his book, The City Game, which chronicles the 1969-1970 magical season of his beloved National Basketball Association (NBA) championship-bound Knicks from his beloved city, New York.
“But its simple motions swirl into intricate patterns, its variations become almost endless, its brief soaring moments merge into a fascinating dance.”
Countless rabid supporters on either side of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) divide late last week saw a game that was more than the sum of its great soaring moments.
It was a gladiatorial combat, but the game itself was a remarkable dance to the death, giving fans a sense of something they had never felt all season long.
One side felt like dying with every misstep, the other soaring as though breaking free to ride with the tumult that was rocketing to the heavens.
It was the rubber match between the Letran Knights, the league’s heartbreak artists, and the San Beda Red Lions, the master of the savage kill, and no game during the season had packed more thrills and suspense.
It had the gallery at the Mall of Asia Arena in the grip of a deathly tension. That same tension had the same effect on countless more fans that followed the game closely, intently on television and radio.
Look where this game, this fascinating dance, had taken us, all of that 45 minutes of action that had history written all over it.
The Red Lions were looking for a sixth straight NCAA championship, a feat that no team has accomplished since 1924, the year the league opened its first season.
No league team could have wanted it more—to be elevated into that pedestal, envied, looked up to or simply adored as the greatest of the greats during the past nine decades.
The Red Lions were hungry and determined. Dying was not an option to them. They always had something precious to live for, a prey to hunt down, a trophy to put in the cupboard, and an extraordinary date that would be etched in stone.
Remember what they did in Game Two.
There was a stretch late when the Knights, riding on an eight-point lead, seemed so certain of dashing them to the ground, but always the Red Lions seemed to inspire fear.
How does one slay the king? For once in this game the Knights hesitated. In a game that had Kevin Racal sinking treys like dagger thrust deep into the Lions’ guts, and 5-foot-6 Mark Cruz hitting his open teammates when hot sniping for the basket, they failed to go for the jugular.
Instead of a team coming out fiercely to end ten years of frustration and heartaches, it was a team afraid to win this title that came out in the last two minutes of regulation.
These Knights, I thought would wear the tag of heartbreak kids for yet another long time to come. Baser Amer, the most fabulous of San Beda’s Triple As (which included Art (de la Cruz) and (Ola) Adeogun, woke up from a deep freeze. He hit eight points in the final quarter, including a steal that led to a fastbreak.
Somehow these shaken Knights gathered their wits in time and survived the flurry. In the extra period Jomari Sollano hit a big jumper off a kick out from driving Cruz, and then added a free throw with six seconds left to seal an 85-82 Letran victory.
With 3.7 ticks left, the Red Lions made one desperate try that bounced off the rim. Their dynastic reign was in ruins. It lasted five years.
Misty-eyed Letran Coach Aldin Ayo said, “Tama na ang sakit.” He was almost drowned out by the explosion of cheers at the Letran the gallery.
“Tayo naman!” Confetti that rained down from the Mall of Asia Arena catwalk bathed him as a swarm of Knights rushed to give him the traditional heave-ho.
Racal’s 23 points, including six triples, led the Knights’ fast-moving offense that had four others hit in double figures.
But it was their defense that, perhaps, did the greatest damage. It bottled up the Red Lions’ aces, who couldn’t produce the sharp, merciless efficiency of their Game Two gem.
They ran into a relentless defense that cost them 31 turnovers, raising their eye-popping miscues in the entire series to 92.
Frustrated, they remain tied for the most number of successive league titles won with the San Sebastian College-Recoletos. The spoiler then, as now, was Letran, which captured the 1998-1999 season championship.
But another difference, perhaps, was the man who was into basketball as a second sport only recently. He was on the bench when the Knights took the first game, and was not around when they lost the second game.
In the rubber match, Manny Pacquiao not only sat on the bench but also made sure the Knights knew why he was there to fire them up. As team manager, he promised each a hefty P100,000 bonus after they lifted the championship trophy.
In the history of the NCAA, no cash incentive was ever larger, and the head of its management committee, Melchor Divina, declared it broke no rules. For the record, the league has no written provision in its rule book concerning incentives to players.
In this era of open basketball, it is almost customary to hand out monetary incentives to player. “They are no ‘simonpures’ anymore,” said my friend, Mayor Jess Burahan of Panglina Tahil, Sulu.
In this case, the giver was the team manager, not the school. And about Pacquiao, Divina merely said, “Alam natin na he can afford it. Wala namang masama na kung kagaya naman ni Pacquiao ang magbibigay.”
This has become the day’s standard. One only has to look at the other league, the University Athletic Association of the Philippines, where the team benefactors of Ateneo and La Salle are titans of the national economy.