UP Maroons vow strong comeback

MANILA, Philippines - The University of the Philippines (UP) Fighting Maroons vowed to come out of their heartbreaking 0-14 campaign stronger for the next UAAP seniors cage wars.

Mike Silungan, who is expected to assume the leadership mantle with the graduation of Woody Co, Magi King Sison and Martin Reyes, said the Maroons will learn from this mistake and enter the hostilities much wiser.

“The 0-14 is not gonna happen again,” said the Fil-Am Silungan after the Maroons dropped a 61-67 loss to University of the East to post a second winless season in four years.

“There’s gonna be a lot of changes next year and we’re gotta get better as a team. This year, we fell short in a lot of games because we didn’t close out games as a team and so we’re gonna work on a lot of team effort and gotta stay motivated,” he added.

Next season, the Maroons will take in a 6-7 foreigner, along with 6-4 Raul Suyod from the West Negros College and guard Gelo Monteclaro from St. Benilde.

Coach Boyet Fernandez, who initially sat in as consultant but assumed coaching position in UP’s third outing after the resignation of Aboy Castro, will not necessarily be back at the UP bench. Fernandez, whose contract was good until the end of the season, has tendered his courtesy resignation this week to give UP management “free hand to choose the next coach.”

“I’m happy to be with UP. No regrets even if we’re 0-14,” said Fernandez. “As a coach, I’ll take the blame for the 14 losses, including the first two (under Castro). But I’m happy for the boys, they did their best, never gave up and continued fighting until the end.”

UP’s Season 73 campaign was stymied by having to adjust to a new coaching system at midstream, and injuries to Mark Lopez (ACL), Co (ankle) and even Silungan (flu). Worse, Alvin Padilla missed two games due to suspension.

“We’re very inconsistent from the start,” said Co, who finished with 11 points on his last game. “There were problems along the way that we can’t control (like injuries) but the games themselves were under our control so basically it wasn’t a good season for us, obviously. The materials were there but we didn’t come to play all season long.”

Fernandez himself believes UP will no longer be a whipping boy in Season 74.

“It will be a different UP team next year. I saw guys who are coming in, and it will be a stronger team, hopefully it will be a different result next year,” said Fernandez.