How UP beat Ateneo
WITH 100 seconds left in the game, Ateneo held a 69-64 lead over University of the Philippines (UP).
By some stretch of imagination, that’s as safe a margin as can be.
No lead is safe in any game. Every contest is not over until it’s over.
And so, in a span of 99.5 seconds, the UP Fighting Maroons achieved the impossible, improbable.
Recoiling like cobras raring for a sting, the Maroons roared for eight straight points to snatch a win from the gulf of defeat in a stunning 8-0 windup never seen in a long, long while in collegiate play.
So blistering was UP’S closeout that after the Diliman quintet had emerged the clear winner, a bewildered Ateneo side was as shocked as a king uncrowned in a flash.
To say that JD Cagulangan starred in UP’S come-from-behind masterpiece would be sports’ understatement of the year.
He was everything.
He owned the last 100 seconds.
He owned the game, acquiring it in four equal parts. First, Cagulangan, described by Du Hizon as a junior standout from La Salle Greenhills, fired a three to slash Ateneo’s lead to 69-67.
Second, he slapped a rebound for UP possession. Third, he dished the pencil-thin Malick Diouf a sizzling assist on the run. Diouf dunk. 69-all.
And fourth, with .5 of a second left, Cagulangan sank a step-aside three from left quarter court.
Ah, the step-aside three is the first cousin of the stepback three popularized by Steph Curry.
Cagulangan’s step-aside three makes him move sideways to either his left or right to break free from his guard and next jump as fast.
Against Ateneo on Friday the 13th, he went to his left to peel off from Gian Mamuyac.
When his step-aside three went in for UP’S titleclinching 72-69 triumph, the unbelieving 15,135 spectators shook the foundations of the MOA Arena of Pasay City with their primal scream.
The shot did not only give UP its first University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball crown in 36 years but it also completely shattered Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin’s myth of invincibility. And more.
It also stopped Ateneo’s title winning streak at three, handing Baldwin an embarrassing fourth loss in the five games that UP and Ateneo clashed in Season 84.
And wasn’t Baldwin the same American who, only a while back, belittled the Filipino coach for being “technically deficient?”
And to think that he met his match in Goldwyn Monteverde, UP’S rookie coach. That says a lot.
If Baldwin suddenly packs his bags and heads for home, who’d dare stop him?
The Ateneo community? Sssh.
THAT’S IT With Vietnam a cinch to emerge overall champion in the ongoing SEA Games in Hanoi—as hosts are traditionally destined to do it—the field is reduced to battling for second. We are presently behind the secondrunning Thailand in the biennial meet. We have time to do it as competition is up to May 23.