Rivalry renewed, revelry postponed for La Salle

Every Ateneo-La Salle game is treated like a championship game. This is true not just for the players, but for the students, and especially professionals because they often have office colleagues from their rival school. A win or a loss will determine how you will enter the workplace the next week. A victory is an opportunity to strut to your desk, your head held high and a smile on your face. A loss will hone your ability to be a good sport, take everything in stride and smile when the winners tease you about the game. On Monday, La Sallians will go to work as usual. But this time, I don't think they will mind how their team fared in the first round against the Blue Eagles. For a team with ten players with 0-2 years of UAAP experience, the Green Archers gave the crowd a good show and made the event worthy to be called a classic Ateneo-La Salle game. If you are an Ateneo fan, it was another day at the office - another team vanquished, another step towards the four-peat. If you are an Ateneo fan, you found it highly appropriate that it was the Phenom's breakout game. If you are an Ateneo fan, you would know that the future is very bright. If you're a La Salle fan, you can't name a scorer off the top of your head. Gone are the days that you had the Maierhofers, the Casios, and the Cardonas. What you have had for the past few years is, according to Coach Dindo Pumaren, a security agency. You have an abundance of guards. And recently, you have now complemented them with a bunch of big men. But who is your star? Who is the finisher? La Salle celebrates its centennial this year, and this has caused them to take even more pride in their traditions. Their UAAP team is part of their pride. What is a La Salle team? It's a team that relies on a system. It's a team of role players who have reliable scorers emerge from the mix. La Salle has won against Ateneo only once in the last three seasons. This has caused people to doubt The System. But will the system lead to a Green Archer win over their arch rivals any time soon? We look at the facts from Saturday's game for some answers. L.A. Salle Last Saturday, Kiefer Ravena topscored for the Eagles with 24 points. Twenty two of those came in the first half. This provided the Ateneo a strong foundation to build a 17-point lead. La Salle tried to counter with comeback kid LA Revilla. Revilla was sidelined for two years because of diabetes and hyperthyroidism. But in the game against Ateneo, he scored 22 points. What's more important is that he scored the last ten in the fourth quarter before fouling out. Another LA was not surprised with this performance by Revilla. In an interview with GMA News Online, LA Tenorio talked about Revilla: "Kamag-anak ko yata yun e. Actually galing din siyang San Beda e. Ang San Beda naman known talaga for guards," said the former king Eagle. First there was Tenorio, then there was Casio. This season will be a true test for LA Revilla, and whether or not he can carry the torch for the past San Beda Red Cubs that have dominated the UAAP. If you are a La Sallian, you are free to see a ray of hope in LA Revilla, who was able to drive to the basket against nobody less than 6-11 Greg Slaughter. Who was Slaughtered? The addition of Ravena to the Ateneo team was expected. And perhaps, other UAAP teams felt confident to find a solution for him somehow. But with former University of Visayas Green Lancer and Smart-Gilas Pilipinas center Greg Slaughter donning the blue and white, the Eagles had a tall advantage over the rest of the pack again. You can't teach height, they always say. In a country where being 6 feet is tall, 6-11 is a prized-catch for a basketball team. In Slaughter's first game in the UAAP against Adamson, he scored 23 points. "‘Yung kay Slaughter na wala talaga kaming naging pantapat," said Adamson coach Leo Austria. But last Saturday, Slaughter only had seven points. He often tried to set up for his post-up moves, but La Salle's Norbert Torres and Arnold Van Opstal were able to stay with him. Slaughter's commanding presence in the paint still translated to six rebounds, four assists and two blocks, but it seems that it was offset by La Salle's Torres and Van Opstal combining for fourteen points and ten rebounds against Slaughter. The X-factors Given that Revilla was able to match up with Ravena's production, and the combination of Torres and Van Opstal offset Slaughter, it seems that the X-factors decided the game. Ateneo was up 17 at one point, and it went down to as few as five in the fourth. But a crucial Nico Salva trey doused the flames of the furious La Salle rally late in the game. With all of the attention going to Ravena and Slaughter, it was still the old reliables that sealed the deal for Ateneo. Salva had 18 points in the game, while Eman Monfort and Kirk Long added ten each. It was their veteran smarts that prevented a fourth quarter collapse - similar to the one that transpired in the first Ateneo-La Salle encounter last season. How do you counter Ateneo's pyramid of stability in Salva, Monfort and Long? These three young men have three championship rings. Their La Sallian veteran counterparts Simon Atkins, Joshua Webb and Maui Villanueva combined for six points in Saturday's game. System vs Superstars If La Salle wants to win against Ateneo, their veterans must learn to uphold the system that they've proudly maintained. They should lead by example and not pray that a rookie or two will rise to superstar status to win the game. They should live, eat and breathe the system, to restore the winning tradition they seem to have lost against Ateneo for the past three years. Last Saturday, with their superstars neutralized, it was Ateneo's system that won the game. Salva, Monfort and Long upheld Norman Black's system and were steady at the end. Is it the superstar or the system? La Salle still holds that it's the system. This time, Ateneo agrees.-- OMG/HS, GMA News