INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines— The National University Bulldogs always dwindled at the bottom of team standings in the UAAP in recent years. This coming season, coach Manny Dandan isn’t offering promises from his rookie-laden squad.

Nonetheless, Dandan said it’s always hard to predict the outcome come October since all eight schools train hard and have their eyes set on winning the championship, or at least making it to the Final Four.

“I consider all the team as heavy rivals since everything is new for us,” said the long-time NU coach.

Point guard and defensive specialist Michael Luy is the only veteran player left for the Bulldogs. Among his crop of rookies, Dandan singled out Davao native Cocoy Hermosisima as a player worth looking out for next season.

The Bulldogs last won a championship in 1954 during the tournament’s first expansion with addition of Adamson, University of the East, Manila Central University and University of Manila.

It has been a long title drought since for the Bulldogs, which produced PBA standouts Danny Ildefonso and Lordy Tugade who played for NU in the 1990s.

According to Dandan, the Bulldogs have been training for eight months now, playing tune up games and joining pre-season tournaments while undergoing extensive training in Tagaytay Highlands the entire summer.

“We focused on rebuilding and conditioning the team, being the youngest team perhaps (in the UAAP) as we are composed of rookies,” Dandan said, adding NU will primarily depend on their quickness in pushing the ball from the other end of the court.

He acknowledged, though, that a liability for the team is his players’ lack of experience playing against more veteran UAAP teams. But Dandan is optimistic of long-term positive results from his current crew.

“There is no instant result but we hope that within four years we can be one of the strongest teams in the UAAP,” he said.