FAR FROM DONE
Both University of the Philippines (UP) and La Salle talked down Game 1 of their UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament title duel like the result mattered less than what it did on paper.
“Game 1 doesn’t win a championship,” UP coach Goldwin Monteverde said after the Maroons’ 73-65 victory in Sunday’s series opener. “[Part of] the process [toward getting a championship] is to get the Game 1. And [we’ve done that] so we’ll just have to focus on what we need to improve in terms of [our] lapses [during] the game.”
“The only thing that I told the team [was] there’s a reason why this is a series: you don’t win a championship by winning one game, you need two games,” La Salle coach Topex Robinson said after the Archers lost to the Maroons for the first time since, coincidentally, Game 1 of their title bout last season.
It could be that the lessons from that championship duel last season watered down the effect of this finale’s opener. After the Maroons won Game 1 of that series—by 30 points, in fact, the Archers stormed back to take the next two games and run away with the crown.
New team
But as if reading from the same script, both coaches dismissed that slice of UAAP history, too.
“We don’t look back at the past, that’s done and over with,” Robinson said. “We [know] UP has thought of that as well, that they lost [the series last year after winning] Game 1. We just need to let things go and focus on what we have.”
“We never dwelled in the past,” Monteverde said. “So right now, as I said, part of the process of winning a championship is winning Game 1. So we got it right now so we’re gonna prepare for Game 2. So we’re gonna do our best, [do] everything that we can to [win] it, and when that game day comes, whatever comes our way, we’re gonna face the challenge there.”
There’s a reason why La Salle isn’t putting too much stock on its comeback last season. A lot of the key cogs of that champion team have already left, putting the Archers in a slight disadvantage when it comes to experience in this kind of pressure test.
“The players are different now; we have a younger team,” Robinson said. “The team that played last season is gone and [the players] have moved forward, so we just have to slug it out. We just have to make sure we will give ourselves a chance to win … they did a good job defensively and credit goes to them they really came in prepared.” Robinson said.
Monteverde, on the other hand, still has players that have been with him in all four Finals appearances of the Maroons.
UP ended a 36-year title drought in Season 84 but lost Season 85 to the Ateneo Blue Eagles before crashing against La Salle in Season 86. In both Finals losses, UP took Game 1.
So maybe there’s a little of those memories that keep the Maroons guarded.
“The series doesn’t end in Game 1,” JD Cagulangan, whose dramatic three-pointer down the wire sealed UP’s Season 84 triumph, said. “We’ll just go back to practice and [expect] that [La Salle] will adjust [to] what we are doing.”
And maybe that comeback last season means something for La Salle after all.
“We still have a chance. We’ve been in this situation before, we just have to keep on being positive and try to learn from this experience. Again thats a tough team we played, we just have to slug it out in the end,” Robinson said.
