A Championship that Slipped Away

CEBU – One of the saddest parts of the CESAFI Championship series is how some just can’t seem to accept that UV won its eighth straight championship over USJR. Their top-of-mind reason is that the refs were behind UV’s championship. I think this is getting a bit too far. It’s rather odd that no credit is given to the Lancers and what they did to win the title. It’s as if the title was given to them on a silver platter.

Don’t get me wrong. This corner bleeds for the Jaguars since they were considered as title favorites before the season started. The league could’ve benefited more if it had a CESAFI champion outside of the Lancers. But as they say in any sport, to win a championship, one has to literally take away the championship belt from the champion’s waist. And it won’t be easy as it’s tightly sealed, locked and well-defended. In USJR’s case, they just didn’t do enough to take that belt away.

I think it’s best that we set aside discussions about the referees and what UV did to win the championship. Instead, let’s take a look at the Jaguars and see whether or not they went out there to take that championship belt away from UV. As a reference, I’ll cite some stats as the basis and you’ll see how USJR lost the championship themselves.

I strongly believe that that USJR’s woes or “jinx” goes back to the first USJR-UV game that would’ve decided the playoff pairings at the end of the elimination round. While UV defeated USJR in that game, the loose talk backstage was that the Jaguars didn’t really need to win the game so as to avoid UV in an early semifinals clash. They were perceived to have played “not to lose” instead of playing “to win.” And we all know there’s a world of a difference between the two. I’m not a believer of “karma” but the sporting gods have a funny way of dealing with teams who play “not to lose.” I’ve seen it all before. Teams that are already safe in the playoffs decide to relax in the elimination round and let a game or two slip away, only to be haunted later by such an act that betrays the very essence of why sports is competitive. These things have a funny way of backfiring on you especially when you don’t play to win.

Game 4 was also good case study to speak for the entire series as it best depicted the story USJR’s fourth quarter collapse which had nothing to do with the call of the referees. Over-all, USJR played a better game than UV for the first three quarters and the opening minutes of the fourth period. They played team ball, defended and rebounded up until the halfway through the payoff period. For the record, Armand Ponce racked up six assists in the first half alone, a testament to the way USJR ran their plays almost to perfection. He could add only one more assist in the second half; not a sign of team ball, is it?

Lyndon Gudez was so hot that he had 21 points through the first three quarters. He was 7-for-15 from the field, including 5-for-9 from three-point land. That’s excellent 56% three-point shooting. In the fourth quarter, the UV match-up 1-3-1 zone gave Gudez many good looks at the basket but what’s a good look if you don’t have the ball in your hands? Why did USJR suddenly forget about Gudez? The irony is that the Jaguars put the ball in the hands of Mannie Gabas who was shooting 36% from the field in the entire series, including 0-for-7 from treyland. Make any sense? Only three players attempted field goals for USJR in the fourth quarter: John Malinao, Gabas and Luther Justiniani. If the team stats were reviewed closely, the Jaguars would’ve been better off going to Gudez who was shooting 47% from the field, Malinao (69%), Jabe Delfino (58%) or even Kurt Amores (50%).

We all know that Justiniani is a vital cog in the line-up and needs to play well if USJR is to win. Did you know that he was 3-for-15 from the field in Game 4, including 0-for-4 in two-point area and 3-for-11 from beyond the arc? That’s 20% shooting from the field. Being a great team player, he got his teammates involved a lot in the regular season, averaging 3.9 assists a game. But the finals was different. His average? 1.8 assists per game.

Another interesting stat is that USJR failed to defend the transition game of the Lancers as UV racked up 12 fastbreak and/or transition points, with six of these coming in yes, you guessed it, the fourth quarter. On top of this, USJR turnovers were exploited by UV, with the Lancers coming up with 13 points off TO’s. USJR’s stat is these departments? Zero. When the smoke cleared, USJR committed 18 TO’s. Ouch!

These stats are some of the elements of a game that can be evaluated objectively and can’t be directly influenced by refs’ calls. If and when stats are used to analyze a team performance, these will spot strengths, weaknesses and opportunity areas of a team. Would things have been different if USJR analyzed the data thoroughly?

Call it stats, karma or whatever you want. While UV won its eighth straight CESAFI championship, we can also add that USJR lost it, too.

* * *

Time-out: Let’s not forget to pray the Holy Rosary in this month of October. You can reach me at [email protected].