IN the blink of an eye, the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) is now halfway through its basketball season. Yesterday the last games of the first round officially brought the hoops tournament to its midway halt. Next week the second round begins and that’s where fortunes will fly or flounder.
In just a span of a month, we have a rivalry in our hands reminiscent of the times when Bogs Adornado and Danny Florencio were the glowingest of the Glowing Goldies (the former name of the University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers) and Turo Valenzona patrolled the lanes for Far Eastern University.
The two schools, joined together by a strip that links España to Morayta, are at the top of the eight-school heap right now, sporting identical 5-1 win-loss records. UST nipped FEU by one when the season was very young—the only team that blemished FEU’s unsullied record. (Ironically, UST got its first loss—also by one—against a National University that was trying to get back its mojo after three successive losses.)
Both went up against separate rivals yesterday (University of the East for UST and National University for FEU), and unless one of them has suffered a loss at the hands of those opponents, they are the survivors among the fittest, the “match-na-match” pair of this season. This early, there have been fan opinions expressed that want them to dispute the Season 78 Men’s Basketball Championship come December.
But wait. The erstwhile rivals of the league will definitely not take that sitting down. After hard-carved wins over various opponents, De La Salle and Ateneo have ambitions of their own to be up there when the final count is made. Both schools had slow starts—De La Salle tripping over an amazing University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons squad early in the season, Ateneo bowing to FEU on its first outing, fueling talks about a less-than-ready, rookie-laden Blue Eagle team that was heavily dependent on Kiefer Ravena to provide the rudder and the power.
But both teams have shown their championship ambitions are not misdirected. The Blue Eagles’ mighty wings still spread magnificently against NU and feisty UE. De La Salle showed its grit and will in a tough game against the same UE Warriors. But against Ateneo last Sunday, the Green Archers showed their maturity and equanimity more than anything else. After absorbing point after point from Ateneo’s long toms and under the goal stabs, the Archers crept back, keeping their poise and composure to win and take home the spoils from their Battle No. 1 this seson. La Salle leveled up in the win-loss chart by sharing an identical 4-3 record with its favorite adversary.
UE has just 2 wins and 4 losses at the time of writing, and if it won over UST yesterday, it has a better record than this year’s hosts, the UP Fighting Maroons, which stands at 2-5.
The Fighting Maroons are dealing with heartbreak and setbacks once again after a glorious 2-0 start. They have not won any game since they surprised La Salle, even if their outings against UST and FEU were close matches that had the mammoth UP gallery (a strange phenomenon for the Maroons) on their feet and shouting at the top of their lungs. The second round is UP’s window to hope, where they aspire to get back the form and mental set that carried them to a pre-season championship in the Filsports Basketball Association (FBA) last summer.
But woe of woes, they recently lost their dependable big man, Jerson Prado, to injury last Sunday in the game against Adamson U. According to renowned sports doctor Raul Canlas, Prado has “the perfect storm” of knee injuries: ACL, MCL, LCL and a dislocated patella to boot.
As for Adamson University, they finished the first round with a win finally, at the expense of UP. “We’ re in the fight,” rookie Coach Mike Fermin said after the game. “The boys followed the game plan and it paid off.”
So after 15 game days of UAAP Season 78, these are the noteworthy highlights so far: One game played in overtime—nay, double overtime—between Ateneo and NU. (Ateneo won.) One coach ejection and a corresponding one-game suspension when AdU Coach Mike Fermin beefed about the officiating as Adamson played La Salle and nearly won. But didn’t. One serious player injury when Jerson Prado suffered that freak accident as UP played AdU and had to be carted off in a stretcher and brought to hospital. He will have surgery after six weeks, Dr. Canlas says.
Thus far, UST’s Ed Daquiaog and Kevin Ferrer and Ateneo’s Kiefer Ravena have been named players of the week, with Ferrer owning the distinction twice.
The second round starts on Saturday, October 10. Yesterday’s games will determine the final team standings and the ultimate game sked.