The worst moment of my basketball fandom came in September 1994, in an NCAA championship game at the oven-hot Rizal Memorial Coliseum. I was in sixth grade then, and I was with my classmates rooting for the Letran Knights, who were defending their championship against their arch-enemy San Sebastian Stags. We went there expecting to win like we did the year before, but Baste started to pull away late in the 4th quarter behind the exploits of their high-flying swingmen, (the overage) Jesse Bardaje and Rodney Santos.

Watching your team lose was bad enough, but it was what happened after that really made it bad. With the game out of reach, the San Sebastian crowd decided to collectively, sarcastically, start rooting for Letran. Those fuckers just wanted to rub it in, so they started chanting “Go, Letran! Go, go Letran!” and cheering whenever the Knights made a meaningless basket.

It was just absolute, utter pwnage, and the worst thing was that we couldn’t do anything about it. When the Baste gallery started up their trademark “Poging Baste...” song (the single greatest pep song in the world), the Letran crowd couldn’t even muster up enough energy for our Palibhasa Letran. Over the years, I’ve developed a grudging admiration for that old Baste crowd, the baddest enemy crowd I’d ever faced.

I don’t know if there was a similar scene during San Sebastian’s clinching victory over defending champions San Beda last Saturday, but Baste’s pwnage of the rest of the league this season certainly merited sarcastic cheers from their gallery. Except for a funk late in the eliminations and the first game of their final four playoff series, the Stags have been pretty fucking awesome this season.

Frankly, I’m still confounded by the Stags’ championship run. It wasn’t that they won, it was how they won. Cinderella’s have gone all the way in Philippine college basketball before, most recently in 2006 when Pido Jarencio’s UST upset Ateneo. In that season, the Growling Tigers caught fire at the end of the eliminations and rode the hot hands of Jojo Duncil in the finals; they lurked all season long and snared their prey during crunch time.

San Sebastian did nothing of the sort; they dominated the summer leagues, and then they won their first fifteen regular season games in very impressive fashion. Even when they swooned, the players on the court always carried themselves like their losing was a mere aberration. In both games wherein the Red Lions beat them this season, the matches came down to the final possession.

I’m still curious about the Stags, and I don’t know quite what to make of them. I’m looking forward to seeing them next season, with a reasonably intact lineup (their only key loss will be main man Jimbo Aquino, who served out his fifth year). We’ll see if Ato Agustin’s magic works the second time around.

I am as interested about Aquino’s future prospects as a professional basketball player. Will he be Bardaje, the college cult hero who never made it in the big leagues, or will he be Santos, the longtime PBA veteran who’s had a solid run as a vital part of numerous championship teams?

In 1993, the powerhouse defending champions San Miguel faced perennial All-Filipino contenders Coney Island (nee Purefoods) in the finals of that year’s homegrown-only tournament. The Beermen were heavy favorites after making a trade for Allan Caidic in the offseason, reuniting the Triggerman with his former national team buddies, Samboy Lim and Hector Calma. The star-studded San Miguel backcourt was rounded out by the reigning Most Valuable Player in the league, Ato Agustin. The two teams’ matchup was a repeat of the previous year’s finals, a series that was capped by 32 points from Agustin in the deciding seventh game.

Rookie coach Chot Reyes was at the helm of Coney Island, which was making its sixth straight All-Filipino appearance. Everyone knew about the frontcourt of Alvin Patrimonio and Jerry Codinera, but their backcourt wasn’t too shabby either, with Glenn Capacio, Boy Cabahug, and Dindo Pumaren. Curiously, Reyes acquired an eclectic mix of players in the offseason; rookies Dwight Lago, Benny Cheng, Olsen Racela, and Freddie Abuda were drafted to provide hustle and energy, but Reyes also recruited a couple of grizzled veterans: Caidic’s old enforcer from Presto, Abe King, and a rugged guard from Alaska, Frankie Lim.

Lim had been, for many years, the starting point guard for Alaska, but he was let go in the offseason as Tim Cone and the Alaska brain trust decided to overhaul their team’s style and build around rookie point guard Johnny Abarrientos—an amazingly prescient move. Reyes, a longtime Alaska assistant, got Lim to join him with the Purefoods franchise. The veteran guard was there to provide insurance for Pumaren, knock down open three-pointers to take the pressure off his twin towers, and provide the kind of tough, old-school defense on opposing combo guards such as, yep, Ato Agustin.

Coney Island won that battle in 1993, but San Miguel got back at them in the tournament’s 1994 edition. Now, 15 years later, Ato Agustin and Frankie Lim are back facing off against each other in a championship series. Instead of duking it out on the court, Lim’s defending champions San Beda Red Lions are trying to hold off Agustin’s surprising San Sebastian Stags.

NCAA sportscaster Toff Rada, who has watched both teams closely, has some of the best analyses of the protagonists. He details the key weakness of the Stags’ game:

The San Sebastian Stags have been through a historic run in Season 85, with their 15-game winning streak spanning a stretch of almost 3 months. That streak was finally snapped by the Letran Knights of Louie Alas during their second round meeting, and things have been in free fall for the Stags, managing just a 2-3 win loss record, since then.

Much of the credit had been given to the physical play employed by the Knights, as the key to solving the San Sebastian puzzle. However, it is no coincidence that the Knights also utilize what may be the meanest full-court press in the league. I believe the press, more than the physicality, exposed the chink in the Stags' armor: the point guard position.

The coaching battle between the old hardcourt warriors is just as interesting. Ato Agustin has emerged as a surprise coaching maven, despite having had no prior high-level coaching experience. Meanwhile, Frankie Lim still has doubters even though he has led his team to two championships. This series, however, figures to be his biggest challenge yet.

Photo by Jan Dizon, NCAA.

I did not see this coming at all. Neither did you, and if you say you did, you’re lying.

I’m not talking about Ato Agustin’s thinning hairline, or the disappearance of his killer stache, although those are weird too. I’m talking about the Ato Agustin taking over the coaching reins of the San Sebastian Stags and turning them into the best team in Philippine college basketball, highlighted by their sweep of the first round of the NCAA capped by a victory over arch-rival Letran.

It’s really weird. He preaches tough defense and unselfishness – and his team buys it! Apparently, they’ve never seen a tape of him playing, ever. I mean, I watched Ato Agustin carry those hobbled San Miguel teams in the early ‘90s, and I loved it when he led the Pampanga Dragons to the first MBA national title over the Negros Slashers, but he’s really not the guy who has the most credibility when he implores his players to play unselfishly and make the extra pass, is he?

His sideline demeanor is also kind of a surprise. He doesn’t subscribe to the mura philosophy of his former coaches (and fellow Kapampangans) Aric del Rosario and Yeng Guiao, although he gives out instructions in the huddle in English (with a heavy Kapampangan hint) like Guiao.

This time last year, I was taking a long break from work, and I had the opportunity to watch more NCAA games than perhaps anyone not paid to watch them. Agustin took over for a San Sebastian team that lost their best player, 6’7” center Jason Ballesteros, and was left with spare parts. So how did he end up, less than a year later with this juggernaut?

Well, there’s the defense. They play hard all the time, and their pressure defense (actually, a 1-2-2 backcourt trap) is absolutely suffocating. I was surprised at how good their press is; it’s better than the presses by teams like De La Salle and Letran, whose programs have been running pressure defensive schemes for years.

But more importantly, they are playing with swagger, something that Agustin had in no short supply all throughout his career. They were never rattled even when Letran went on a huge run and led by double-figures, or when Rey Guevarra and Kevin Alas made several impossible shots off daredevil drives, or when Letran gunner Jaypee Belencion hit a bunch of three-pointers.

They always knew they could come back, and they did, erasing the Letran lead in a huge third quarter run. It was a great performance that could only come from a crew who truly, honestly believe that they’re better than the other team.

Letran was able to limit the Stags’ main man Jimbo Aquino, but Ronald Pascual stepped up in his stead. But I suspect that if it hadn’t been Aquino or Pascual, it would have been someone else for the Stags. The team’s just built that way, and Agustin deserves all the credit in the world for that.

It's a really busy day at my real workplace, but here are some things I wanted to pass along:

• A couple of days ago, San Sebastian and Arellano upset San Beda and Letran, respectively. This is turning out to be a crazy NCAA season, even crazier than last year! Btw, is Jimbo Aquino for real?


• Floyd Mayweather is broke and delusional. As TQBR noted, can we stop calling him "Money" now? He's also, apparently, a softie.


• Kobe Bryant is coming to Manila! This is going to be crazier than Gil's visit. I hope Kobe doesn't try to rape anyone. Ha!


• Ginebra vs. SMB game 2 tonight. I think the only chance San Miguel has is if Marc Pingris goes berserk (in a good way). Also, why does Danny Ildefonso turn into a wuss every time he plays Eric Menk? It's been happening for what, ten years now?


• Japeth Aguilar makes a solid debut for Powerade Team Pilipinas, in a tuneup game versus a selection of Christian athletes from NCAA D1 schools. Only six players -- Aguilar, Arwind Santos, James Yap, Kerby Raymundo, Ranidel de Ocampo, and Willie Miller-- were available for the national team, so Yeng Guiao enlisted Wynne Arboleda, Mark Yee, and Beau Belga to help out. I love the idea of Belga on the national team. If we make it to the World Basketball Championships, I'll start a campaign to include him.


• Taking off the snark hat for a moment, here's a shout-out to James Yap's mother-in-law, former president Corazon Aquino, who's in stable but delicate condition. I'd point everyone to this profile of Cory from 2006 written by Sheila Coronel as a good place to look, for anyone who wants to keep her in thoughts and prayers.


• Happy weekend everyone! See you on Twitter later for the game!

Photo courtesy of Ubelt.com

The 85th edition of the NCAA opened with a bang last Saturday, kicking off the college basketball season. Defending champion San Beda dominated Mapua in the first game, 85-52, while last year's runner-up JRU staved off Letran in the second, 65-62. In the third game that wasn't televised, San Sebastian welcomed their new mentor Ato Agustin with an impressive 76-64 victory over Perpetual Help.

San Beda looked about as well as they looked at any other time over the past three seasons, each of which ended up in a championship. The Red Lions were without their three best players from last season, Sam Ekwe, Pong Escobal, and Ogie Menor, but Frankie Lim's boys didn't seem to care. Their frontline was especially productive, with returnees Jake Pascual, Dave Marcelo, and JR Taganas teaming up with new import Sudan Daniel. Coming into the season, I figured San Beda's backcourt might struggle with Escobal, the team's leader, leaving and starting point guard Borgie Hermida still recovering after blowing out his knee in the Philippine Collegiate Championships late last year. After seeing them against Mapua though, maybe it doesn't matter.

Or maybe it does, especially with this Mapua team. Apart from losing their leader and best player, former MVP Kelvin de la Pena, they also lost their coach Leo Isaac to the pro ranks. That would have been bad enough, but their starting point guard Jonathan Banal will also miss the season after blowing out his knee. So perhaps a win over the Cardinals, despite being impressive, should be taken with a grain of salt.

The second game was much more exciting, with JRU eking out a victory over a game Letran squad who came back from being down by as much as 11 points in the third quarter. The Bombers are heavily-touted this season, and with good reason: they have the best starting crew in the tournament, with an intact five from the team that pushed San Beda to the limit last season.

But JRU can also be the most maddening team to watch (and I could imagine, coach). They're surely talented, but they're also very inconsistent throughout the game. They can be brilliant for stretches, combining their athletic gifts with grit and hustle, but then they would suddenly lapse into a coma, playing lackadaisically, missing layups, and settling for long jumpshots.

Letran, on the other hand, is a team in flux. On one hand, they have eight rookies on the roster, but they also have RJ "So Cool" Jazul and Rey Guevarra, the only members of the Smart Gilas RP Developmental Basketball Team currently playing in the NCAA. They have a paper-thin frontline after their three best big guys (Dino Daa, Alvyn Cabonce, and Regin Ranises) graduated, but also have the best coach in the league in Louie Alas, who has never missed the Final Four in seven seasons coaching the Knights.

As a Letran fan, I was ecstatic despite the loss after seeing the second-half emergence of Kevin Alas, the highly-touted Letran freshman who was heavily recruited by Ateneo and La Salle before deciding to play for his dad--you must admit, Letran had the inside track for recruitment. He had the jitters in the first half, but he came alive late in the third quarter, slicing through the JRU defense, harrassing Cagoco up the court, and sparking the Knights comeback.

He's really really really really really really good. He makes me giddy.