"Wala. Masama ang nilaro ng UE," said Dalupan, the man being considered as the dean of Philippine coaching, as he watched helplessly from ringside how the Archers clobbered the Warriors, 84-65, for their third straight win in the 66th UAAP season.
Dalupan, who coached UE to 11 of its 18 UAAP titles, including eight straight during the ’60s, rued the fact that the Warriors, under coach Boyzie Zamar, didn’t have the answer to the Archers’ trapping defense that forced them into 23 turnovers and cost them 26 points.
"Alam naman nilang ‘yon ang gagawin sa kanila. Pero wala pa rin silang nagawa," added Dalupan, also the winningest coach in the Philippine Basketball Association with 15 crowns, nine of them with the legendary Crispa Redmanizers.
Dalupan, now in his seventies, could only laugh when asked about the possibility of staging a UAAP comeback.
"Hindi na kaya. Matanda na tayo," he said laughing.
The Warriors went into the game with an unbeaten record following victories over defending champion Ateneo and Adamson. Instead, they fumbled home with a 2-1 record. La Salle joined FEU on top of the eight-team field at 3-0.
"We just played well and they played bad. But you cannot take the credit away from our defense. I think they (Warriors) were not aware of our game plan. This is an ego booster for us," said La Salle coach Franz Pumaren after the game where his charges trailed early, 2-7, then led by as many as 27 points, 79-52, with four minutes to go.
"I’d be man enough to accept this defeat," said Zamar after the loss, which is even more painful than the 80-83 defeat suffered by the UP Maroons to the Adamson Falcons in the first game.
The Falcons trailed by four after three quarters then scored heavily from inside and waxed hot from the stripe in the fourth to nail their first victory of the season after back-to-back losses to FEU and UE.
"The first two games kasi gigil ang mga bata so I just told them to settle down. UE and FEU are the teams to beat and nagkataon lang na natapat agad kami sa kanila. I’m just happy for my players na naka-one na kami," said Adamson coach Luigi Trillo.
"We needed to win this game because our next two are against La Salle and Ateneo," added Trillo, who went winless in his first two years as Adamson coach before going 3-11 last year, one of the victories also coming at the expense of the Katipunan-based Maroons, still winless in three outings this year.
Down by two, the Falcons unloaded a 10-2 bomb going into the final two minutes and never allowed the Maroons to regain the upperhand. Adamson made 14-of-18 charities in the final quarter for an overall clip of 29-of-39.