‘Twas only a dream, right?
The upset we dreamed of did not happen. Why, because we weren’t fully prepared for an all-out battle. How can a hastily-formed crew defeat a team that’s been there for months, if not years?
South Korea being the defending champion, it came more than aptly prepared.
Even as the Philippines built a couple of leads—44-42 at the half and 65-64 after the third quarter—they were never ever rock-solid margins.
Notice how the Koreans just plowed on, playing along with a demeanor of a true champion.
No trace of panic on their part even while we were busy building eight-point leads, the last at 54-46 in the last 6:21 of the third quarter on a Jordan Clarkson drive.
When they knotted the count at 62-all on a 7-2 run and next grabbed the lead at 64-62 on Ricardo Ratliffe’s undergoal stab, that’s when things started to look grim for us.
Clarkson’s three to make it a 65-64 PH lead proved to be our last gasp as the Koreans, finally unleashing their whole might that wasn’t molded overnight, quickly sped to an 80-72 bubble built around four three-pointers.
After Stanley Pringle made it 80-74 with 4:15 left in the game, the Koreans finished us off in business-like fashion, blowing us away with a 9-2 explosion for an 89-76 Korean lead time down to 87 or so seconds.
Clarkson made his farewell piece with his own 4-0 blast to put us to within 80-89 but then, only 46 seconds remained.
By this time, the Koreans were now on cruise mode en route to their 91-82 victory and a semifinal slot while eliminating the Philippines out of the medal tally. So what else is new? The loss was the Philippines’ fourth in five international clashes against the Koreans since we lost to them in the 2002 Busan Asiad—a screaming proof of their superiority over us since the days of their great Shin Dong Pa in the Seventies yet.
But if it’s any consolation, our team was not really meant to win, given that it was assembled at the last-minute in response mainly to the public’s angry demand for basketball to be in the Jakarta Asiad—the sport being our national pastime.
Yes, our 82-80 loss to China had swelled national pride. But Korea manhandling us had simply put us back to earth. Face it.