THE first round of the men’s basketball tournament of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) is over. The second round begins.
The last game of the round-a rematch between last season’s finals protagonists, the University of the Philippines (UP) Fighting Maroons and the De La Salle University (DLSU) Green Archers-was another classic.
Fans have come to expect the finest quality contest between these two teams of late, as they consistently take their newfound rivalry to the next level.
Tracing its beginning to the days when Ben Mbala was still a Green Archer and the Fighting Maroons were just beginning to find out what a winning culture means, UP-DLSU games have been intense and tightly fought.
Close games, come from behind wins, heartbreaking outcomes sometimes embellished with bench intramurals, have given Maroon and Green encounters the drama and excitement that have fully engaged their respective faithfuls in their rivalry.
Last Sunday, October 19’s game was a confirmation of all that rabid competition.
Packing a crowd of 11,654, the Smart Araneta Coliseum was filled with people wearing the competing school colors-although many also chose to wear white to make a political statement-white was the color of the day for both La Sallians and UP peeps who wanted to make a joint stand against corruption and to demand accountability for the corrupt.
The cheers and yells caused Apple watches to alert their wearers about dangerously high decibel levels that could potentially harm their hearing.
All the roar and thunder of the warring crowds was, however, silenced for a while when the UP Pep Squad and the De La Salle Animo Squad came together on the floor to do a joint ‘anti-corruption’ yell, spreading a mantle of goodwill that united the Taft and Diliman sides for a while.
But that didn’t last long. The second half began and the hostilities not just continued-they escalated and it was a tightly fought game all the way till the final buzzer, with scores as dangerously close as they could be and the balance of power tipping either way with every possession.
La Salle, playing without key players Mason Amos and Kean Baclaan on paper seemed disadvantaged in the showdown. But no, the Green Archers played hungrier, executed better, particularly in the paint, and went home with the win, 72-69.
It was a superb game with high level entertainment, agonizing suspense and supreme unpredictability right down the wire-Green Archer-Fighting Maroons encounters are the game equivalent of nail-biting, heart pounding, edge-of-your-seat movies.
Being right there among the faceless crowd watching the game, I pondered the end score for a while and started to wonder. What is it about the Fighting Maroons and the score 72-69? Or just the number 69, for that matter.
If you haven’t noticed it before, let me tell you why those numbers set off an alarm bell in my head. Remember the JD Cagulangan last-second heave in overtime of Game 3 of the Ateneo-UP championship game in Season 84, May 2022? The final score that time was 72-69, in favor of the Fighting Maroons on the very last day of the ‘bubble season.’
When Season 85 opened on October 1, 2022, in the UAAP’s first and so far only two seasons-in-one-year staging due to the pandemic, UP and La Salle immediately collided on the very first day. Guess what the end score was-72-69, again in favor of the Diliman squad.
Then last Sunday again, the same numbers showed up on the scoreboard of UP vs La Salle on the last day of the first round of Season 88-72-69, but this time, the fortunes were reversed. La Salle was 72, UP was 69.
Which brings us to another observation, this time just about the number 69-UP was fresh off a 69-66 win over the Far Eastern University Tamaraws at the Quadricentennial Pavilion before they faced La Salle.
In UP’s game against the Ateneo Blue Eagles on October 8, the Maroons allowed the Eagles to score only 69 points as they won, 83-69.
What is it about the UP Fighting Maroons and the number 69? I’m sure numerologists would have something to say about it.
Now that the second round is nigh and the game schedules have been laid down as efficiently as a travel itinerary, let’s see if any more quirky number coincidences pop up on the giant scoreboard.
I have a suspicion the basketball gods have some hand in it. But ha-ha. I’m just kidding.