The vindication of DLSU and DLS-Zobel

 After emerging victorious in five games against arch rival Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) Blue Eagles, the De La Salle University (DLSU) Green Archers will meet the University of the East (UE) Red Warriors in a best-of-three series starting this Thursday for the men’s basketball title of the 70th University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) season.

It was a bitter loss for Ateneo. ADMU had won three of the five encounters with DLSU but the Archers won the ones that mattered most. The Archers won last Sunday, 65-60, to clinch the highly coveted second finals slot.

It will be the Archers’ third championship appearance in four years. DLSU won the title in 2004 upsetting the highly favored Far Eastern University (FEU) Tamaraws. The two squads met again for the title in 2005 with the Tamaraws avenging their 2004 loss.

DLSU was suspended, unjustly as many claim, from competing in all UAAP sports in 2006 as punishment for fielding two ineligible players in basketball in 2004 and 2005. DLSU had voluntarily informed the UAAP Board and the public about its discovery and returned the 2004 championship trophy.

In 2006, with DLSU excluded from UAAP competitions, the unheralded University of Sto. Tomas (UST) Growling Tigers beat  Ateneo and won its first championship in about a decade.

A day before the Archers and the Eagles met for the fifth time, the Junior Archers from De La Salle-Zobel (DLSZ), completed their comeback by shooting down Ateneo in overtime, 98-92, at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium to reclaim the championship they won in 2005. Game heroes like Jed Manguera and Joshua Webb, grandson of former senator and congressman Freddie Webb, head a list of La Salle Green Hills and DLSZ graduates who are being eyed by coach Franz Pumaren for the DLSU squad.

La Salle’s victory, fashioned out before a live audience at the Big Dome of more than 23,000 and millions more on TV, was mainly due to a tough and sticky defense that Ateneo surprisingly failed to handle consistently. The Blue Eagles were limited to only 60 points and made a mere 18 of 56 attempts for a sorrowful average of 32.1 percent, many notches below its previous performances.

The Archers, not known for being a spectacular shooting team, were not too far ahead at 37 percent, making 27 of 73 field goal attempts. From beyond the three-point arc, the Green Archers made five of 18 attempts for an average of 27.8 percent. The Blue Eagles, on the other hand fared miserably, making two of 14 tries or 15.4 percent.

The Archers varied their defensive strategies by switching periodically from a one-three-one zone to their patented trapping defense. It appeared that Ateneo was not able to adjust during the game to a variation concocted by coach Franz Pumaren. This time the Archers’ trapping defense emanated from the sidelines.

A comment made by Ateneo’s coach Norman Black after the Blue Eagles had earlier won a hard-fought first game against DLSU that – (he) had to review the tapes to figure out what they (DLSU) were doing – indicates that there may have been a lapse in precisely figuring out what DLSU was doing during the game.

One clear proof of the effect of the Archers’ no-nonsense defense was DLSU’s domination of the boards despite Ateneo’s bigger and heftier men in the paint. DLSU out-rebounded Ateneo 51 to 36, with the Archers making 16 points off its 10 offensive rebounds. ADMU had only two points from its six offensive rebounds.

While this fifth encounter was not as close as the four others, it having only two deadlocks and two lead changes, it was, as usual, fast and furious, putting to a severe test the two squads’ conditioning. And it is superiority in this area that probably allowed the Archers to employ a game-long double teaming defense and to dominate the boards by a mile.

The highly charged match up featured several instances of trash talking and taunting. Eric Salamat stuck his tongue out at the pursuing Malabes of DLSU as the Blue Eagle soared into the air to complete a steal. At game’s end, Malabes stuck his tongue out in return at Salamat.

For Pumaren, a loss could have meant sleeping again at 3:30 a.m. the next day. After that heart breaker of a loss, 64-65, last Thursday, Pumaren stayed up reviewing and analyzing how the Green Archers managed to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”