ADMU vs UE (Round 1)

Actually the moment i woke up today before the game, I somehow had a good feeling about the outcome of this important duel against UE. I thought that i was going to play better than i did because i felt refreshed but i didn't need to be extra aggressive today thanks to the support coming from my teammates. Even before the game started, we received word from a reliable source in the dugout that Paul Lee will not be playing. We cannot deny that he is crucial to their team but either way, we all agreed in our customary pre-game huddle amongst the players that we will come out with intensity and come out to kill!

I feel that we can match up with UE pretty well given the fact that they have lost their long, athletic wings like Borboran and Canizares as Espiritu is forced to play the power forward position most of the time with the loss of Gregorio. And since Nonoy wasn't in foul trouble today, he was able to somewhat neutralize and even overpower Espiritu. They have a deep rotation when it comes to their guards but so do we. We have Jai, Yuri, Kirk, Eric, Ryan, and myself. We haven't even been using our secret energizers in Oping Sumalinog and Zags Gonzaga. In fact, we pose mismatches against the defenders of Ryan Buenafe, who is much bigger and heavier than most wingmen, and just so talented and smart. Many people actually don't believe that he was born in the year 1990, i think his brain was made in the 1970s.

No question that it was Rabeh's inside presence that gave us the lift today especially down the stretch with his 18 points and 17 rebounds. Most of his points did not come from set post up plays for him but from drop passes and offensive rebounds. So we have to credit his efforts in crashing the boards as well as the unselfishness of our teammates to get him the ball at the right place at the right time. I'd give most of that credit to Ryan. But overall, defense was key. For a team that averaged 80+ points in their last two games, we held them below 60. I have to say it was team defense but i want to give special mention to Nonoy Baclao who showed no signs of an injury. He had a couple of blocked shots but his defensive presence and ability to change shots really made a difference even if those are not reflected in the stats sheets. That's what i call heart! Eric also adjusted to playing the point guard position, organizing the offense, during the most part of the end game.

Now, back to the referee-ing issue. Those who were in the stadium watching live saw the inconsistencies of the calls. Of course its hard to tell just by watching TV, plus we have very diplomatic analysts who really gave fantastic insights and thoughts about the game. Great job TJ and Boom! It's just not in our culture here in the Philippines to have analysts like Charles Barkley who blatantly shows dismay or disapproval over certain calls by refs or poor decisions by the players. As captains, we were the designated spokespersons of the team in cases which need some clarification and I'm sure everyone in the stadium also noticed my continuous complaining to the referees because i felt that we were always being prevented from pulling away every time we would start a run (not just in this game). But nevertheless i apologized to Commissioner Narvasa while i was standing in the middle of the court and he was signaling me to keep quiet or else the big "T". We must respect proper authority regardless of your temper, that's what I was taught since my elementary years in Xavier. I try to be unbiased in my judgement, so i gave them the benefit of the doubt. But just so that i can sleep well tonight, i made sure to watch the game again using my mom's newly procured Pioneer DVD recorder which can record from TV directly to a Hard Disk or to a DVD. Pretty high tech... and costly too! But it has great features like the slow motion feature which i use a lot to make sure that i see everything in detail. So here's my assessment of the referee-ing: 1) They called hand checks consistently both ways. 2) They made some honest mistakes (i believe) with some out of bounds violation calls, both ways again. But, 3) the offensive foul calls were pretty inconsistent, definitely NOT to our favor. Whether intentionally or not, i do not know.

If you remember after the half-time break, they called the two captains (Marcy and I) to the middle or the court to tell us to relay to the players not to "flop" or act on contacts or they will call a blocking foul. I think they forgot about that conversation immediately.

Anyway, I was talking to Eric while taking a shower in the very filthy ultra locker room and we agreed that this win truly gave us more confidence with the potential of this team.

I want to thank everyone for supporting the team and PLEASE keep praying for us, that the game will be played on a level field for all teams (if you know what i mean) and that we will come out victorious after the season! One big fight!

Sometimes i wish we could have female referees! haha!
And thank you for the greeting Ms. TIUva-TiuTiu although you didn't have to put my age there :) and sir aly yap, great shot!

Chris