The Final Score: UP beats Adamson Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1

There was hype for UP versus Adamson. And the hype was justified. One team had lost 27 straight games. The other scored just 25 total points during a loss. Both teams needed a victory the way the Incredible Hulk needs indestructible pants. Kailangan talaga. UP supporters wanted to experience victory after the final buzzer. Adamson supporters wanted the same. It was real thirst against real hunger.

Was the hype a twisted way to celebrate mediocrity? Maybe. But I believe UP and Adamson supporters who made the effort to watch the game at Mall of Asia Arena, witness the game live on televisionm or patiently follow the game through Facebook and Twitter wouldn't have made all that effort if they intended to party over unmet expectations. Why even make an effort to do that?

It was must-win game in the first round for two teams. Therefore, it understandably became a must-watch affair even for neutral observers.

When the game between an O-and-six team and an O-and-five team started, the soundtrack of wishful thinking started to play. My eyes saw the game but my ears heard songs. My bad. I was suffering from Guardians of the Galaxy hangover during the game.

In the first quarter, Adamson's Jansen Rios walked toward the free throw line. Rios, who completed a glorious fastbreak dunk early in the first half, easily looked like a front man for a college band. So while UP still made what seemed like a sure three-on-one fastbreak look like a journey into the unknown, Rios became aggressive in the opening period. He struck me as someone who took Adamson's lonely crusade seriously in the same way Billie Joe Armstrong took soul-crushing lyrics to heart.




I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's only me, and I walk alone

In the second quarter, UP's JR Gallarza, that between-the-legs-dribblin' candidate for magna cum laude, sparked a 16-0 run for UP.

Wait, wait, wait. Did they just say 16-0 run on live television? By UP? It was happening. Holy Rodics! It was happening.

And that dude with the thick, white headband, Gallarza, was leading the pack the way old-school-hard-work-hustle-and-all-grit Bruce Springsteen led the East Street Band.



Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days

Then, UP's running rebel, player-metrics-be-damned, comeback-player-extraordinaire Mikee Reyes took over in the third quarter. While you're reading this, number crunchers like Pong Ducanes and Nico Baguio are still staring at their laptops, attempting to figure out how Reyes finished the game with 28 points.

Never mind how. It happened. The Fighting Maroons are ecstatic that it happened. Because it fueled a 20-4 run. Take a bow Mr. Reyes. He survived shoulder injuries from the past. He regained his spot on the team. He left the squad last year after a controversial season opener against, of course, Adamson.

He no longer needs to fret. His first round game against Adamson this year secured his place on the team, even in tales to be retold in time. Reyes' performance in the third period was so, so, so Eminem-esque.




You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one show, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

The fourth quarter felt like one long fugue state. UP opened the final period with a 64-46 advantage. Emotions of an expectant yet vigilant UP crowd swung wildly from excitement to terror — no way a team so hungry for a victory could possibly lose that lead, right? — to hysteria to pride to paranoia to anticipation.

In the meantime, Adamson made last one push, cutting the deficit down to 10 with three minutes left in the game. Unfortunately for Adamson and fortunately for suddenly mortified UP students and alumni, the Falcons couldn't push any farther.

As I wrote in my last piece about this season's Adamson team, the haunting voice of Karen Carpenter was now a necessary mechanism to cope with yet another impending defeat.




Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby
You said you'd be coming back this way again baby
Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby, I love I really do




This was it. UP was going to win. For sure. Sure na yan diba? Please. Secretly, you rehearsed the words in your head. You bit your lips until they bled. You didn't dare jinx the game by carelessly blurting out the words even as the final seconds gloriously ticked away. 5…4…3…2…1…



But it's been no bed of roses,
No pleasure cruise.
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And I ain't gonna lose.

(And I need to just go on and on, and on, and on)

In the end, the hype, whether warranted or not, no longer mattered. I salute each and every UP and Adamson supporter who watched the game. This wasn't about the fixation for championships. This was about winning one game.

The bliss. The happiness. The high.

It was about the chance to exchange hugs and high-fives with complete strangers. It was about finding joy in the absence of sustained success. It was about embracing meaning only they could see.

And even if at the risk of championing mediocrity, I believe such games brings us back to the soul of college hoops. I hope that statement makes sense. Yung maging masaya tayo even if three-peats or four-peats or ten-peats are not at stake. Yung maging masaya tayo that players have a chance, even in the midst of a possible winless first round, to pull off performances of a lifetime. Yung maging masaya tayo because participation in college sports was also meant to be fun.

The thirst was real. The hunger was real. The furor and fun of one single game was as real as it could ever be. — JST, GMA News