Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Pages: Led by A-player, Ateneo scores with its A-game By John Pages Match Point
FR. Vicente Uy is the executive director of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC). He’s been to dozens of sporting events around this nation—and around the world. But nothing, when we spoke last night, compares to what he witnessed last Sunday.
“Electrifying!” he said, when I asked about the atmosphere at the other day’s most awaited basketball game of 2008. “Lahi gyud. I’ve watched Ateneo play other teams. I’ve seen La Salle play other UAAP opponents. Lahi gyud. Nothing compares to La Salle and Ateneo.”
Gifted by a generous patron with two tickets, Fr. Vic Uy escorted his “boss,” the well-liked and mild-mannered PSC Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez to last Sunday’s Game One at the Araneta Coliseum.
What tickets were you given? I asked Fr. Vic, expecting him to say that, like most, they owned passes to the upper or lower balcony sections.
“Ringside!” he answered. “We were at the VIP section, right behind the commentators. That’s why some people told us after the game that they saw us on TV.”
It was Fr. Vic’s first time to watch a La Salle-Ateneo game and he added, “Grabe ang loyalty of the students and the alumni. I’ve watched other UAAP games and they’re nowhere near as exciting. Nothing compares to these two.”
Finally, I asked Fr. Vic, who used to be one of the pillars of the University of San Carlos (USC) here in Cebu as it’s Vice-President for Finance, a simple yet tricky question.
What color shirt did you wear? He laughed.
“Red,” he said. “I have to be neutral. Same with Chairman Butch. Though he’s from Ateneo de Davao, he wore a neutral-colored, printed shirt. Lisod na with our position.”
But while our top two RP officials wore neither color of the two schools, inside the stadium where 23,000 people screamed, only two colors were visible: blue or green.
What happened in Game 1?
I scanned through the sports headlines of the nation’s top newspapers and, from there, the winner was obvious. In the Philippine Star, there’s “‘Rabeh-emoth’ performance” and “Tiu for two but win’s a win.” Flipping through the Manila Bulletin, it’s “We’re down but not out – Franz.”
To us here in Cebu, if you clicked on the Studio 23 channel last Sunday and watched, for two hours, the contest between the two most popular basketball schools in this country, you’d have witnessed a non-classic.
A non-classic?
Yes. The game was lopsided. A no-contest. For while La Salle, with their green-and-white uniform, stayed close in the first quarter and led by three points with three minutes left in the 2nd, after that it was all blue. And all about one man:
A........ Al-Hussaini.
“Rabeh,” he’s nicknamed, and grabe. What a giant and what a performance. Towering at 6-foot-6, he rebounded, scored hook shots, jump-shot from 20 feet away, then,
after all those bursts of scoring, lifted his arms to the deafening shouts of his fellow Ateneans. His total output: 31 points. His reward? The MVP... which everyone
expects he’ll receive at the start of Game 2.
The Green Archers? They fired and misfired. They pulled their bows, aimed at the 10-foot-tall target and missed. Too many open shots, too many missed shots. They were out-rebounded—and out-shot: the Archers shot only 28.6 percent from the field while the Eagles made 42 percent.
In the end, while Ateneo led by as much as 14 points (51-37) in the third quarter, the final score was 69-61.
Game Two is this Thursday and, what should we expect? Well, take it from La Salle coach Franz Pumaren: “We’re down but not out. It takes two games to win the championship.”
True. Pumaren should know. He’s a five-time UAAP champion coach. “We were also 3-0 against them in 2005,” he added.
I hope La Salle wins Game 2. Not only am I speaking as a Lasallian but, more so, as a sports fan: If the game is tied one-apiece, it transforms the series into a winner-take-all Game 3 on Sunday. Imagine that day? The hype? The screams? The betting? The bragging?
