Fajardo, Pringle top BPC contenders; Slaughter out

MANILA, Philippines – With Greg Slaughter failing to get Barangay Ginebra into the Final Four, Globalport super sophomore Stanley Pringle looms  as the only player with a legitimate chance to stop San Miguel Beer prized behemoth Junmar Fajardo from claiming a record third PBA Philippine Cup Best Player of the Conference honors.

Fajardo and former SMB main man Nelson Asaytono share the record with the most number of all-Filipino BPC citations with two each.

The current SMB star could well be a cinch to nail a record third plum if the team rolls past Globalport, featuring its do-it-all Fil-Am guard who is third in the BPC race.

Terrence Romeo, the other half of the Globalport super backcourt duo, is at ninth place.

Alaska Milk’s Vic Manuel seems to be the only other player with an outside chance of foiling Fajardo’s three-peat bid.

However, Pringle and Manuel would need to make a great, great impact in the best-of-seven semifinals if they’re to overcome Fajardo’s huge statistical point lead.

Alaska and Globalport begin their best-of-seven semis showdown Monday at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. Meanwhile, Game One of the SMB-ROS faceoff is set on the next day at the same venue.

Going into the semis, Fajardo carries an average of 45.6 SPs a game as against Manuel’s 33.7. Pringle averaged 37.3 through the elims.

Aside from a topnotch performance in their semis series, Pringle and Manuel would also need help from Rain or Shine on its own semis duel with Fajardo and the SMBeermen.

However, the Beermen are up 8-2 in their last 10 meetings with the Elasto Painters.

Fajardo averages 23.1 points, 14.4 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.6 assists while Pringle norms 21.1 markers, 8.0 boards and 4.2 assists.

Manuel is Alaska’s big ace with norms of 16.4 points, 8.0 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.4 steals.

Aside from Slaughter, other elimination top individual performers who failed  to get past the quarterfinals are NLEX’s Sean Anthony and Asi Taulava, Barako Bull’s Willy Wilson and TNT’s Jason Castro.

Taulava (2003) and Castro (2013) are both previous Philippine Cup BPC winners.

Prior to Fajardo’s back-to-back citations as top player of the all-Filipino tourney, Asaytono was the only player to have done the same feat in 1997 and 1998.