IT’S been five days since that unforgettable triple overtime game between the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Growling Tigers at the shiny and spanking clean Blue Eagle Gym.
But we’re still incredulous. And fascinated. Because it was not just the Ateneo de Manila and UST athletes who were playing that game. Our collective experience as spectators who witnessed the game and went through the rise and fall and rise and fall of every extension period, made us very much a part of the action, be it only in the fringes of the hardcourt.
It was, they said, a historical game for the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). The first-ever triple overtime game in the men’s basketball tournament of the league has been marked and written in the annals of the league.
Games that go beyond the regular period don’t really come very often either. And double overtimes are even more rare. But a game that goes into triple overtime? That feels like a ‘Super Blue Blood Moon’! (A Super Blue Blood Moon is the rarest kind of moon there is because it requires circumstances for a Blue Moon-two full moons in a month-to happen together with conditions for a Blood Moon-a total lunar eclipse-for it to take place.
Super Blue Blood Moons occur only once every 37 years!
But we digress. That October 11 game was long-drawn, draining and exasperating. But at the end of it all, it was ironically, exhilarating. At times it felt like The Gunfight at OK Corral with the relentless exchange of shots from both sides of the court. It also felt like a roller coaster ride that alternately took us on loop de loops of tit-for-tat scoring, then left us suspended in midcourse brakes as the score remained tied for a seeming eternity.. Then we plummet down again into no-brakes, unscripted action.
How long will this game last? We asked ourselves. How many overtimes can the players and the crowd still absorb?
We thought: in the end it will all come down to conditioning. And then again, we surmised: it will all boil down to heart.
And that’s what we saw. The Growling Tigers led by Nic Cabañero and Gelo Crisostomo pushing, pushing, pushing-performing like a trusty tool running on Energizer batteries.
On the other side we saw cramps and injuries weighing down the Eagles’ wings, tired nerves and unaligned meridians affecting shots. But a brave Eagle named Jared Bahay carried the weight of the whole Eagle convocation on his young shoulders and let his heart rule his shots.
They found their mark too. But the Tigers always clawed back.
Then the third overtime rolled in. And big though the heart is, it was no match for the Tigers that pounced on every visible weakness or hesitation of the opponent.
Finally the game ended, to most everyone’s relief. And no matter what physical or mental state one was in after that once in a lifetime encounter-tired, spent, drained, wrung out, dejected, euphoric-all agreed it was an adventure that had no precedent in this side of collegiate basketball.
To be honest, there have been games with more than three overtimes in basketball history. An National Basketball Association game between the Indianapolis Olympians and the Rochester Royals in 1951, which Indianapolis won, 75-73, had six overtimes.
In 1981, the Bradley Braves lost to the visiting Cincinnatti Bearcats, also 75-73, in the longest men’s collegiate basketball game ever played, which had seven overtimes. A little-used bench player named Doug Schloemer scored on a 15-foot jumper with one second remaining to finally settle the score.
In hoop history the longest game ever played was one between the Boone Trail Pioneers and the Angier Bulldogs in a high school championship in North Carolina in 1964. Though the game observed unique time limits-eight minutes a quarter and three minutes of overtime-it still went overboard, time-wise.
There were 13 overtimes in this one, with both teams failing to score in nine of the 13 extensions. After three hours and 25 minutes, someone finally scored and the Pioneers won, 56-54, just before midnight. It is considered to be the longest high school basketball game on record.
Actually, there is no limit to the number of overtimes a basketball game can have. The rule says there must be continuous play until a winner scores the winning basket.
The mantra therefore in playing evenly-matched basketball should be ‘Matira ang matibay.’ And the battle cry ‘Patay kung patay.’