I had wanted to blog about this earlier, but there were more, uh, pressing matters to blog about. Over the weekend, Lawrence Chongson, former coach of the University of the East Red Warriors in the UAAP and current coach of Cobra in the PBA D-League, joined the fray in the popular message board community Pinoy Exchange and began answering questions from its readers.

Answers that involved such topics as UE star Ken Acibar, and the coach’s long, flowing locks:

good morning guys. to answer ur questions for today: #1 yes. Acibar will stil play for d university, unless tanggalin din sya. #2 never pa ako nagapapa-rebond ng buhok in my entire life. if u wud only come closer to me then u'll see. noon pa man pati mga girls nai-inggit sa hair ko kasi straight daw. maybe its my chinese genes, i don't know. at my age hndi na ako masyadong conscious sa ganyan. kung alam mo lang how much hair i've lost or nalalagas sakin since i started coaching UE. syempre super-pressured diba? lalo na kung alam mong marami ang babatikos everytime matatalo ang team.

Continue reading "Former UE coach Lawrence Chongson lets his hair down at PinoyExchange.com"

Haven’t done this in a while, but before we get to the bullets, I enjoyed this comment from reader Jowana Bueser last week:

Have you seen Kris Aquino's Dalaw? Just bothered with Diether Ocampo's role as her husband. Seems like potshots against James Yap. He's the almost spineless, not so good with English husband who earns less than his better-educated wife.

Okaay. On to the bullets:

Continue reading "Wednesday bullets, starring Jeron Teng, Jerry Codiñera, Younghusbands and Dalaw"

I had wanted to do a mock draft for the PBA rookie draft that’s happening tomorrow, like I did last year, but I didn’t have much time. I had actually been in Davao these past few days for a project for the day job – we were documenting a seminar for human rights workers from the Visayas and Mindanao, people doing the Lord’s work – and it was the farthest thing from having a blog where I write awful things about PBA players.

Continue reading "Quick thoughts on tomorrow’s PBA draft"

Thumbs down to the UP Fighting Maroons, who lured their fans into getting their hopes up with an improved team featuring rookie Fil-Am Mike Silungan, whom Coach Aboy Castro described as a cross between James Yap and Dondon Hontiveros. True to form, they got plastered by La Salle. They should just go ahead and change their name to the UP Sucking Maroons.

Read my report on the UAAP Season 73 opening weekend over at FHM.

So the rumors are true: Greg Slaughter, the 6’11” star center of the University of Visayas Green Lancers, is now redshirting for the Ateneo Blue Eagles to be eligible for the 2011 UAAP basketball tournament, Quinito Henson reports in his Philippine Star column. While Quinito downplays Slaughter’s transfer to Katipunan, instead playing up the center’s improvement while training with the Smart Gilas program, the story may have far-reaching implications.

Slaughter first flew to Manila to train with Gilas, a team bankrolled by SBP chairman Manny Pangilinan, who’s also the top patron of the Blue Eagles. It couldn’t have been coincidence that Slaughter chooses to transfer to the same school sponsored by his Gilas principal. Pangilinan pours huge money into Ateneo sports – “between P10 million to P12 million” a year, according to one Inquirer report – and it’s not hard to imagine him or his minions exerting influence on the SBP to steer Slaughter into making the “correct” decision.

Continue reading "Holy crap, Greg Slaughter really is transferring to Ateneo"

I wrote a feature about UAAP for FHM, and it includes a wrap-up of season 72 and a sneak preview of season 73. Also, corny jokes:

Continue reading "Fire Quinito's UAAP postmortem on FHM"

What else is there to say? Ateneo has been an awesome team all season long. They’re the deepest team with the most talented players, and an excellent coach in Norman Black who used all his assets to build an overwhelming basketball machine, like an expert poker player with the big pile cleaning out the other people in the table.

UE was a good, plucky challenger, but the third game saw the Warriors running out of pluck after encountering the Blue Eagles at their best. Sports writers and announcers harp on the cliché that the team that wants it more would win the championship, but that rarely ever happens. I don’t think Ateneo had any more heart than UE did, or does; they just had better basketball players.

Continue reading "Ateneo hammers UE, wins back-to-back UAAP championships"

Hot shooting and a solid zone defense keyed a hot second half run by the UE Red Warriors in their 83-63 win over the Ateneo Blue Eagles in game 2 of the UAAP finals. The UE veterans led by Paul Lee, Elmer Espiritu, and Pari Llagas kept things humming on offense, but it was the Warriors’ impenetrable zone that was the key.

Alaska Aces coach Tim Cone, in his Twitter account (the best by any Philippine basketball personality, in my opinion), dissected the game in three tweets:

Continue reading "UAAP finals: UE outguns Ateneo, runs away with game 2 to force do-or-die"

I am so glad that basketball is back. I hope everyone who had been reading this blog over the past few months are safe and dry. I’m sure that everyone has spent the past few days helping out in his or her own way, and I’m just thankful that the first UAAP finals game between Ateneo and UE is on to provide all of use with a little distraction.

Some thoughts on Ateneo’s 78-71 win this afternoon:

Continue reading "Ateneo holds off UE, takes UAAP finals game 1"

... to let everyone know I haven't been killed by Quinito or Ryan Gregorio or Noli Eala. Not yet anyway.

It's just been an awfully busy time at work; my office is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and we're launching a couple of new websites to highlight the occasion. So there's that, and I have to prepare a speech about the sites too. We also have a conference coming up, and I'm part of that too so, yeah, busy. It's too bad, I had a lot of jokes about how the Barroca thing turned into a very ugly situation. Heh.

Anyway, I apologize for the week's absence, which should continue on to next week. Then, hopefully, I'll get back to blogging like a motherfucker.

Meanwhile, do check out Patay ang Butiki, those guys should tide you over for your sports fix.

Quick thought on the Ateneo-UE final: It's a battle between good and evil. You decide which team is which.

Also: this is cool.