#UAAP 81 Maroons ADMU Eagles UPFight

[dpinoycosmonaut]

THE KATIPUNAN SERIES: A POST-MORTEM

by Reuel Hermoso / January 01, 2019

          And finally, it has come home to roost – again – on the south end of Katipunan Avenue.

         The Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles are, for the second time in as many seasons, the champions of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines.  They successfully quelled the challenge posed by the upstart University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons by handily beating down the pretenders to the throne in two straight games in their best-of-three series early in December.  No need for a Game 3 to settle the matter, as we predicted.

         Banking on 10 years of finals experience since the institutionalization of the Final Four format in 1993 – and successfully clinching the title seven times in that span – the Blue Eagles showed the Fighting Maroons and the rest of the UAAP why they deserve to continue being the basketball kings of the UAAP hill for a second year in a row.  With a lockdown defense that was merciless in picking the ball from the opponents’ hands – whether in the backcourt even before a play could be set up or in the post when the shot is methodically denied so that the ball ends up in a Blue Eagle’s hands – and with an offensive juggernaut that runs roughshod over any opponent, the Blue Eagles were like the Roman legion laying Germania or Judea to waste during their finals battle with the Maroons.

         Without going into too much detail of the play-by-play of the two finals games, let’s look instead at the numbers, and validate our analysis in particular plays we saw in those two games.

         Game 1 held at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City was pretty much a nip-and-tuck affair.  As my resident breakfast-table analyst Pocholo Hermoso of the Ateneo de Manila Senior High School aptly put it, UP played good offense and defense for three and one-fourth quarters.  The problem is, the game is played for four full quarters, and it was in the end game where the Blue Eagles shed their neighborly image and let loose a clampdown that saw the Maroons’ chief gunners Paul Desiderio and Juan Gomez de Liaño, affectionately referred to within and outside UP as Juan GDL (his brother would be Javi GDL), turn in their lowest outputs for the season with just five and 17 points, respectively.  Juan averaged in the mid-20s so clearly a defensive master plan was prepared for him especially.  

         The result was a 9-2 blast by the Blue Eagles in the clutch, and an 88-79 decision in favor of the boys in blue-and-white and a virtual twice-to-beat advantage for the crown.  Point guard Matt Nieto erupted with a career-high 27 points on 9-of-16 shooting, of which nine were scored in the final canto – truly a clutch performance that finally quelled the Maroons’ sporadic uprisings throughout the course of the game.  Jun Manzo, UP’s energy bunny in the backcourt, was the lone bright spot for the Maroons with 19 points as Bright Akhuetie himself was sidelined for most of the game after a positional shove by Ateneo big man Angelo Kouame inadvertently caused the UP big to hyperextend his left knee, although he was able to return to the game late in the final quarter.

         Manzo was the one single Maroon that consistently played the thorn on the Blue Eagles’ side throughout the game, attacking Ateneo’s inside D and pulling up from the outside to wreak havoc on the Eagles’ perimeter D.  Some tactical adjustments by coach Tab Baldwin where defensive specialist Gian Mamuyac was put on Manzo provided a solid denial defense on the UP guard, limiting his touches in the fourth and helping suppress UP’s scoring to only 18 markers in that crucial stretch.  Ateneo, meanwhile, had 25 markers anchored on three shots by Matt Nieto from trifecta country that took the wind out of the Maroons’ lungs for good.

         Despite the Game 1 loss, the Maroons and their tireless fan base were far from discouraged, taking their fight to social media in a flurry of exchanges from both sides of Katipunan.  The exchanges led to a level of acrimony that reached such a scale hitherto unseen between the students and alumni of both universities.  For most Ateneans, the real guys to pile on in the UAAP were the La Sallites, their nemeses for so many UAAP battles (and even back in the NCAA), so they were quite unused to seeing this kind of antagonism coming from the north side of Katipunan, especially since students from both universities would often mingle in common areas along the avenue, such as the UP Town Center, the Regis Center, and a whole host of eateries and drinking holes in the Loyola Heights area. Their alumni never talked about basketball rivalries between them; usually it’s the Ateneans who talked about their latest episodes in the UAAP wars, with the UP alumni nodding or shaking their heads but always in agreement, and saying very little.

         So this year’s sideline antics were quite new and bewildering to many on the blue side – as was the matchup itself.  Some UP folks like celebrities Gretchen Fullido and Rikki Flores-Reyes, former courtside reporters for the Maroons, proffered explanations on Mico Halili’s “The Score” on ABS-CBN Sports+Action channel, practically begging their Katipunan neighbors and anyone else who cared to listen to understand that they haven’t been in the finals for 32 years, and thus the level and type of emotion can sometimes get out of hand.  This explanation, however, doesn’t wash when one considers that in 2014, the National University Bulldogs also reached the finals – and won it! – after 60 long years, but their community did not seem to be as curmudgeonly as UP’s was.  Of course, we could ask their opponents for the top prize, the Far Eastern University Tamaraws and their supporters, if they did feel some heat from the Bulldog fan base.

         But regardless of what the sideshows were churning out, it was clear that the Blue Eagles had gained the upperhand, and would be ready to finish off the Maroons in Game 2.  Below-the-radar betting pundits gave UP a plus 19.5 heading into the December 5 game, meaning a bettor betting on UP to win needs to have his team win by 20 points for him to take home the jackpot.  In local parlance, UP was dejado (not favored) while Ateneo was llamado (favored to win).  Nonetheless, the Fighting Maroon fan base would not be deterred from showing up in Game 2 in the similarly large numbers that came throughout UP’s two Final Four games and in Game 1.  The crowds in both Game 1 at the MOA Arena and Game 2 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum were decidedly at least 60 percent Maroon.  They came to show their love and devotion, nothing less than full support, for their boys, and this was evident in both games in the championship series.

         But, as the Ateneans in the gallery liked to say: “Outnumbered, but never outfought!” and this was unmistakable in terms of the cheering.  It did help Barangay Loyola Heights (as the Ateneo crowd is often called) that, as the opening canto was halfway through, their boys did not disappoint them, thus the cheering and heckling from the blue side of the coliseum was as loud and lusty as that coming from the Diliman Republic.  

         The Fighting Maroons won the opening jump ball, and commenced hostilities on a Paul Desiderio three-point jumper.  For the first few minutes, it was a nip-and-tuck affair similar to Game 1, with Jarrel Lim also throwing in a bucket, and it seemed for a while that UP was ready to take this down the wire, this time with a different and happy ending.  But no sooner had Paul’s trey sunk when it was quickly followed by a Thirdy Ravena layup, the first two in an avalanche of points and all-around performance for the ages that would forever write Ravena’s name large and wide in the annals of UAAP and Ateneo basketball history.  Thirdy’s monster 38 points on 13-of-19 shooting from the field, including 100 percent from the free-throw line (7-of-7), which went with five rebounds, six assists and three steals, all came together excellently for a virtuoso feat that may take some time to be matched.  Desiderio himself put on a steady, heady show, scoring 15 points – clearly showing his resolve to make up for the clampdown that the Ateneo D had handcuffed him with in Game 1.  

          On the other hand, the tragic hero in UP’s failed drive to bag Game 1 with 19 points on  8-of-11 shooting, Manzo, was practically nowhere to be seen in Game 2 as he went 0-of-2 from the floor.  Juan GDL as always, was dependable, coming off the bench and pouring in 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting, scoring inside and from medium range (going 5-of-9 on two pointers) as well as from beyond the arc (3-of-5 shooting).  In the low blocks, Bright Akhuetie, who was hobbled not so much by his injury from Game 1 – he was able to return to the game in the second half of Game 1’s final quarter – paced all of UP’s starters with 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting.

Figure 1. Scoring development and comparative stats, Ateneo vs. UP, UAAP 81 Men’s Basketball Finals

         Just how dominating were the Blue Eagles in Game 2?  Let’s look at the data (Figure1) provided by Genius Sports and archived at https://www.fibalivestats.com/u/UAAP/1061917/bs.html , which we provide here.  Check out, in particular, the scoring development of the game, which plots how the game progressed based on the scores accumulated by either team.  Period 1 (P1 in the chart above, or the first quarter) was the only time when UP led in the game – the rest of the way it was all Ateneo.  UP had its chances, especially with Juan not letting up and trying his darnedest to lift his team, along with Paul, in the dying minutes of the game, when everything had been settled except the final score.  With great effort, Juan and Paul were able to help bring the Eagles’ final winning margin below 20 points – 99-81 – on a Gelo Vito runner in the shaded lane.

         If one looks at the data (Figure 2) though, while the Blue Eagles were clearly ahead in some departments, the Fighting Marrons weren’t that far behind or were even better than their neighbors in other areas.  In regular field goal shooting, the Blue Eagles’ 58 percent (on 30-of-51 clip) is decidedly better with a 14 percent margin versus the Fighting Maroons’ 44 percent (on 23-of-52 shooting).  But from beyond the arc, the Diliman boys had the edge, although not by much statistically (depending on your margin of error).  Ateneo shot more three-balls – 24 of them – but made only 33 percent of them, while UP shot less with 19 attempts, sinking seven trifectas in all.

Figure 2. Other comparative stats (rebounds, assists, etc.), UP vs. Ateneo, UAAP 81 Men’s Basketball Finals

         However, it was from the free-throw line that UP could have made the final score a bit more decent; the Fighting Maroons were given 25 free throws, of which 11 they bricked out, for a 56 percent success rate.  The Blue Eagles were given just 17 attempts from the charity stripe and missed only two for a whopping 88 percent success rate.  Free throws, as anyone who has played the game knows, are a surefire way to get your shooting going, especially when you’ve been throwing bricks from the field.  Sinking your charities places your mindset in a proper frame, enabling you to finally score, whether in the post, the wings, or the backcourt.  That UP missed so many chances to get back in the game was telling, and it was clear all game long – all series long – who was really at home in a finals setting, and who was the outsider who had busted in.

         Looking at the other figures, again, we can see how UP’s numbers weren’t so bad.  Of course, rebounds would expectedly go the way of Ateneo – 51 vs. 33 – with 15 of the Blue Eagles’ total boards coming from the offensive end.  Of the Fighting Maroons’ 33 caroms, 10 were cleaned off the offensive glass.  But in other departments, UP was able to go toe-to-toe with Ateneo – it moved the ball quite well (tied at 16 assists apiece), picked more pockets (8-7 in steals), had less turnovers (16-11), and even scored more in transition (16 fastbreak points vs. Ateneo’s 15).  More importantly, the Fighting Maroons’ second and even third units were decidedly better than that of the Blue Eagles’, with bench scoring at 45 markers against Ateneo’s 38.

         So how did the game end up being such a lopsided affair?  Off hand, I don’t think an 18-point winning margin is so lopsided.  By making key plays on both ends of the floor, the Maroons could have brought themselves within striking distance and perhaps even upset the fancied Blue Eagles with a Game 2 win to force a Game 3 rubber match.  The scoring by quarters would seem to indicate that this was possible – Q1 at 25-13, Q2 at 48-37, and Q3 at 70-56 – all in Ateneo’s favor.  But these are not out-of-reach leads by any stretch of the imagination.  The Blue Eagles might have dominated the game from start to finish, but the Maroons were in it, and might have even had the satisfaction of at least dragging their Katipunan neighbors to a do-or-die had they indulged in less ball watching or being wowed by Ateneo’s dazzling plays, and just put their heads down and got the job done.

         That said, there’s really something about the Blue Eagles’ brand of basketball.  The passing as well as the extra pass for better shot options, the movement without the ball, misdirection and decoys, and little to no one-on-one plays – in other words, a total team effort on the offensive end – was truly a sight to behold.  On the defensive end, lockdown team defense that sets up timely shows – not overcommitting but pesky enough to disturb the point guard’s table-setting chores – on set screens, jamming the pick-and-roll on switches and double screens, disrupting the passing lanes, denying the driving lanes, active hands, and having arguably the best rim protector in the league in Kouame, among others, forced UP to one-and-done possessions – usually empty – and scoring on the break.

         Credit this to having a mentor like Tab Baldwin on board.  Appointed head coach of the Ateneo men’s basketball team in December 2015, he led his young wards to a finals appearance in just his first year (Season 79) of coaching the Blue Eagles in 2016.  And though they fell short on that first attempt, bowing to the De La Salle University Green Archers in two games, the fact that they reached the finals in just his first year of coaching the team was no mean feat.  More than that, they were able to wrest the crown from the Green Archers the following season, and now have successfully defended their title, earning the first back-to-back in UAAP men’s basketball since the last back-to-back in 2009 won by, uh, Ateneo also, that time under coach Norman Black.

         Coach Tab has indicated that he has no plans to leave Ateneo anytime soon, so that thought may probably send shivers up the spines of the other members of the UAAP.  But there’s no secret to his formula, and all the plays he’s designed have already been scouted effectively.  Adamson University coach Franz Pumaren revealed all he had to do was watch endless rounds of videos of Blue Eagle plays under coach Tab, particularly when the Ateneans represented the Philippines in the last Jones Cup tournament in Taipei this year.

         So, folks, coach Tab has no magic wand that he can wave and get the game to go Ateneo’s way.  However, it will take a lot of hard work, endless rounds of watching tapes, and endless cups of coffee, to win against the Blue Eagles.  But it can be done.  Ateneo’s rivals just have to believe in themselves, and buckle down to work.

         Good luck.