ONE overtime in basketball is as rare as rain in summer. Two overtimes will make for a hands-on miracle. But three overtimes?
I have no word for it but impossible.
That’s what happened on Saturday, October 11.
It was the game between University of Sto. Tomas and Ateneo de Manila in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball tournament.
Ateneo had all the reasons, one telling motivation, to win. It was playing on home court, in its newly-renovated gym where the Blue Eagles’ last played a UAAP game two decades ago. Gripping drama was in the air.
UST came simply in fulfilment of a date: Do battle with a serious title contender. Win and the job is done. Another day in the office.
But the appointment proved harrowing for the Growling Tigers from Espana.
Instead of the game lasting its usual 40 minutes-10 minutes each per quarter-it went 55 chaotic minutes brought on by three overtimes consisting of 15 additional minutes of five minutes each.
The game transformed from a normal contest to a marathon, with the Tigers clawing a 98-89 win over the Eagles who went limping, puffing and huffing in the end.
What hurt Ateneo the most was the fact that its former player, Forthsky Padrigao, did the most damage in a gold uniform instead of the Eagle’s patented blue.
Padrigao, who moved to UST three years ago after spending one year as Ateneo’s starting star guard, nailed a three that forged the game’s first overtime.
He’d continue backstopping UST in the next two overtimes, eventually finishing with 20 points, four rebounds, two assists and a steal in the tournament’s first triple overtime in the Final Four era.
‘All we needed to do was show our heart and grit and it paid off,’ said Padrigao, who is aiming to help end UST’s title drought since 2006 in his last season. ‘Our respects are with Ateneo because they battled us for three overtimes.’
The battle seemed like an eternity so that if this were boxing, both boxers were trading punches in wild abandon-but no one would fall. Surrender was never an option.
Each side clung on mere instinct in the energy-sapping contest that, by the time the game hit its third OT, the one with a fast-emptying tank-pitifully, Ateneo-eventually dove into depths of deathly abyss.
Ateneo’s import Divine Adili was no longer divine as he had exited on five fouls, big man Kymani Ladi succumbed to cramps and Eagle star Jared Bahay, brilliant with his back-to-back threes earlier, left the house nursing a shoulder injury.
With Ateneo’s triple-threat finally out of commission, UST stormed to a 94-85 lead with 2:17 left, milking the clock from there in cruising to victory as the stunned hometown crowd fell in funereal silence.
Alas, for Ateneo, it was drama turned to trauma.
THAT’S IT Lala Sotto, who turned a new leaf on October 12, is one lucky soul today, October 15. As Chair and CEO of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), she will preside over the grand ceremonies tonight marking the 40th year of MTRCB’s founding at swanky Solaire North along Edsa, Quezon City. Big names from show biz and the Philippine film industry, among others, are expected to grace the historic occasion, with Pops Fernandez and Rico Hizon as emcees for the event that took months in the making under the strict, meticulous, stewardship of MTRCB Board Member Eloisa ‘Wise’ Matias. Cheers!