2010 title best so far for Black

MANILA, Philippines - When Ateneo hacked out a title-clinching 65-62 win over Far Eastern University Thursday night, the Blue Eagles not only essayed a breakthrough “three-peat” for their school but also gave their coach a personal milestone.

Thanks to the Eagles’ first “triple crown” in the league, AdMU coach Norman Black earned the distinction of being only the second bench tactician to score a grand slam in the Philippine Basketball Association (1989 with San Miguel Beer) and capture at least three successive championships in the UAAP men’s cage hostilities.

First to pull this rare achievement off was the legendary Virgilio “Baby” Dalupan, who steered University of the East to an unprecedented seven UAAP diadems in a row (1965 through 1971) and Crispa to a sweep of the 1976 PBA tournaments.

Black, who now has three UAAP titles and 10 PBA championships tucked under his belt, wasn’t consciously gunning for that coaching “double grandslam” but admitted being gratified the most by this latest win.

And he credited his players for making this possible, overcoming odds in a year when the Tams, not the Eagles, were touted to dominate.

“I don’t want to insult my former players but this is by far the most gratifying championship we had in Ateneo, mainly because this was the most difficult,” said Black, who did the trick without the luxury of a dominant player in the mold of Rabeh Al-Hussaini or Chris Tiu.

“Let’s face it, we weren’t the favorites but I knew we had a good team, I knew I had to develop them as the league went on and like I’ve said, they’ve been listening to me, they’ve been following what I told them to,” he added.

Championship experience and hunger lifted his team to glory this year, capping their exploits with a 2-0 sweep of the No. 1 ranked FEU.

“(At the start of the league) I was just confident that if we could just get ourselves in a position for the top two slots (in the Final Four), we should be able to do damage in the playoffs. I knew that because most of my players have been here before,” he said.

“Of course you can’t tell that to everybody else. FEU led the league, Adamson was second almost the entire year, and we’re just hanging around. But when you’re in the situation that you’ve just won a couple of championship, you know that if you just get there (finals) again, you have a chance of winning it again,” he added.

Next year, Black and his crew will be shooting for a four-peat, the longest championship streak in the Final Four era.