Eagles eye last feather in their cap

MANILA, Philippines - Ateneo hopes to end a long, challenging season by seizing 2011’s final cage gem against a San Sebastian team looking to earn some measure of redemption in the 2011 Philippine Collegiate Champions League (PCCL) finals starting today at The Arena in San Juan.

Weary and all, Eagles coach Norman Black said they would go all out for their third consecutive crown in the PCCL, largely considered a showdown among titlists and top-performing schools to determine the best of ‘em all.

“It’s a been a long season, we’ve been playing since the end of March so it’s like looking at a light at the end of the tunnel as far as this year is concerned and that this is hopefully, our final two games coming up,” said Black.

The Blue Eagles have participated in nearly all tournaments last summer, topping the FilOil Flying V Pre-season Premier Cup, before completing their majestic flight to a four-peat in the UAAP.

The hunger factor remains the same, maintains Black.

“We wanna win the championship but at the same time, we’re also looking forward to hopefully getting a little bit of break after this series is over,” he said.

Ateneo, however, goes into the 4 p.m. match with a win-or-go-home predicament as San Sebastian enjoys twice-to-beat advantage in the finale.

The Stags got the incentive after nosing out the Eagles for the top seeding at the end of the round-robin Final Four, their 70-69 win in the stage settling it.

“We know San Sebastian is tough to beat, and they just beat us this week so we have to do something defensively against their high pick and rolls with Calvin Abueva because that’s what really killed us in the end. If we can defend that, we might have a better chance of beating them,” said Black.

Hurdling such one-game disadvantage is not new to Ateneo. The past two years, Eagles dropped the opener of the then best-of-three format finale (to Far Eastern in 2009 and Adamson in 2010) but swept the next two to prevail. 

San Sebastian suffered a stinging setback the last NCAA tourney, settling for runner-up honors to San Beda on a year it went 15-0 only to sputter in the end, and this could be the Stags’ chance to redeem themselves somehow.

Coach Topex Robinson, however, viewed this title campaign more as a build up for next year.

“We just want to take this opportunity to assess our lineup for next year,” said Robinson. “We know Ateneo will flex its muscles against us. We just have to value every possession.”

Kicking off the day’s action at 2 p.m. is the battle for third between NCAA kings San Beda and CESAFI boss University of Cebu.

Meanwhile, PCCL chairman Reynaldo Gamboa and ABS-CBN Foundation president Regina Lopez renewed their groups’ partnership for the staging of benefit games for the “Kapit Bisig Para sa Ilog Pasig,” a project aimed at the rehab of the historic river.

Gamboa bared plans to expand the juniors competition to include champions from other regions to challenge the top teams of the UAAP and NCAA.

“A competition similar to the ongoing national collegiate championship would be another boost to the development of school-based basketball programs,” said Gamboa.