Of course, my favorite team deserve a single post so I can avoid comparing it to other teams. Though I'm really a fan of all the schools but this team is special.
Defending champion as they call us and there's pressure on that even we lose the key players that brought us to that championship. We really never expect to much from the team but we are still supporting them of course. The goal each year is Final 4 and going in to this season, it's hard to tell who teams get better other than DLSU who got Ben Mbala as I said this year is full of surprises too.
For us Tams the great surprise was when it was end of 1st round eliminations and we are sitting alone on that number 2 spot next to DLSU. We started slow, we were defeated early on this season and that's okay. What we've learned before, it's okay to be defeated early on the season than the important ones at the end.
Some didn't go our way like our schedule mostly was 1st game even it should be a main game so the crowd really toned down. We ended the season without a go-to guy, our games were giving us heart attack every time because they will do a huge comeback within a minute or two. It was a young team for sure but some of them got experience now so we are already looking forward for next year where Hubert Cani and Arvin Tolentino are expected to join the line up. Most important for next season and we waited for this is that, we are the host next season.
I think it was during or after the 1st round when rumors began to spread that Coach Nash will be named as the new head coach of Talk N Text in the PBA and that means he will be leaving once the season is over. We are even bothered if he will leave soon since PBA is scheduled to start mid-November and the UAAP isn't over by then. I somehow think that it also affect our players since we had a very rough start on the 2nd round probably a factor next to a long break.
When it was already confirmed, I never thought that I'll feel the same feeling I had when Terrence decided to join the PBA, it was heartbreaking. Coach Nash is such a respectable person and even we don't know him personally we see it the way he changed the attitude of the players. We love him for that and the way he is during games, he's just too cool even on crucial moments though you can also see if he is upset. Also you have to listen to his interviews because I assure you that you will give you full attention and you will never be distracted.
S77 was not be for us but imagine if we did it back-to-back but that's for NU, nevertheless he gave us our 20th championship.
Oh remember when we did a 25k record breaking crowd in Araneta? Yeah. Good times.
It was hard for this season to be back in the Finals since there are times that we also depend on the other team but we were almost there just a millisecond late.
At some point, that millisecond also saved all of us from another ticketserye. It saved my friends and I for spending too much if we will still play a 2/3 games. Of course I know that the experience in the Finals is so memorable and we've been there, done that. But knowing that everyone will surely push DLSU to be champion, it will be hard and maybe a little bit frustrating if we went through on the other hand, it will be nice if we did a back-to-back it's definitely their time now.
Going to the F4 and having a 0-2 record with Ateneo, we really didn't expect too much. For us, being in the F4 was already a huge accomplishment but when we won that game against Ateneo it opened another chance for us to be back in the Finals. Unfortunately we didn't but losing on game 2 with 1 point wasn't that heartbreaking because we all know that it was indeed a one good basketball game, definitely one for the books.
After the game, we check Twitter while waiting for our food and even that the game wasn't that heartbreaking the tweets of being thankful to Coach Nash made me tear up. Then it started to sink in, Coach Nash will move from UAAP to PBA. That was also his birthday and we failed to give him a very nice birthday gift.
Sir Mark Molina said before that they will do everything for Coach Nash to still be part of FEU so let's hope that we can still see him at the bench even it will be a strange one.
Coach Nash, thank you!
See you next season.
No comments:
Post a Comment