With two early wins, Baldwin can be No. 3 at end of season
Tab Baldwin is now breathing rarified UAAP air, with the brilliant Ateneo coach becoming just the fourth man to win 100 games, and having the chance to climb up the ladder later on this season in dislodging another former great Blue Eagles mentor.
The Kiwi American, who burst into national consciousness as the Gilas Pilipinas coach more than a decade back, can notch win No. 102 on Sunday against Adamson, when the Eagles’ Season 88 campaign resumes on Sunday, and that could move him within seven more wins of equaling Norman Black at third all-time on the winningest coaches list.
But knowing Baldwin, he isn’t one to gloat.
“I haven’t won a hundred games. [It’s] Ateneo [which] has won a hundred games when I was labeled the head coach,” Baldwin said. “That’s the truth. It isn’t humility or anything else, it’s just the truth.
“It’s a team game, the coach plays a role, sometimes more significant, sometimes not, but the game of basketball should be about the players.”
Coincidentally, when Baldwin began his coaching stint in Ateneo back in 2016, they lost to UE in that year’s Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup.
It may feel nice to notch his 101st win as an Ateneo tactician against his tormentors of days past, but he’s just relieved to pull one out despite the neck-and-neck game, much like they did when they squeaked past the Far Eastern University in overtime of their season opener.
“I’m really happy that we’re getting the wins in tough situations,” he said.
Since starting his coaching stint for the dynastic Ateneo squad in 2016, Baldwin has now recorded a win-loss record of 101-37, 36 wins shy of the all-time mark being held by former La Salle tactician Franz Pumaren, with the late Aric del Rosario of the University of Santo Tomas at No. 2 with 113 victories.
Baldwin has always been a forward-looking coach, and that’s all he’s concerned about in his quest to bring the crown back to the Blue Eagles’ lair since Season 85.
“We’d rather be 2-0 than 1-1 or 0-2 so it gives us a little bit of a platform, but you can’t take a breath at this point. We still have to put [more] wins on the board and continue to improve.”
