WIN it today (Wednesday) or University of the Philippines (UP) faces the specter of an abyss too deep and too dangerous to slog.
That’s how crucial Wednesday’s Game 2 is for the Maroons when they battle the perennially dangerous Ateneo Blue Eagles.
The 6 p.m. game at the MOA Arena in Pasay City is practically UP’s most opportune time to nab it to nail the University Athletic Association of the Philippines basketball crown and end a title drought spanning almost four decades.
It would be an achievement for UP that is liberally laced with history—and more.
A win would hand UP the rare honor of halting Ateneo’s fourth straight title in five years, which started to take form when the Blue Eagles quickly toppled foes like bowling pins from the get-go.
But when the Maroons butted in to end the Eagles’ 39-game winning run starting in 2018, not only did the bubble burst for Ateneo—it also unmasked kinks in the defending champion’s armor.
The Blue Eagles would panic when confronted by UP with an airtight defense, especially at crunch time.
The Blue Eagles would prove vulnerable when using their zone defense, a fact that Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin himself had acknowledged—grudgingly.
“I was too stubborn not to admit it,” said Baldwin after losing to UP twice already this season.
Yes, the Eagles had appeared too unwilling to adapt to situations, becoming virtual captives of Baldwin’s bookish style of coaching that’s too textured it tends to succumb to unchartered patterns.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, Ateneo’s crown courts outright disaster today as UP is out to grab it with a mindset that says it’s now or never.
Amazingly, Goldwyn Monteverde has been giving Baldwin the headache he’s never had in ages—and Goldwyn is a mere rookie coach of UP.
If Goldwyn must splash UP’s locker room walls today with the words, “This is for Year 1986, the last time the Maroons won the UAAP basketball championship,” I will agree 100 percent.
That’s a battle cry too powerful to ignore.
It can move mountains, stop a tsunami.
It can definitely goad the Maroons to win the Game 2 title-clincher because a deciding Game 3 might prove to be UP’s street of no return aka funeral.
Almost always, experience prevails in a no-more-tomorrow decider.
THAT’S IT The election is over. When things don’t go our way, continue to trust God. Believe that God is sovereign over all things. Let’s move on.