IF NATIONAL University goes on to complete a comeback and caps a thrilling UAAP ride with a championship, the Bulldogs would end up rewriting their less-than-modest basketball history.
The Bulldogs battle the Far Eastern University Tamaraws in the winner-take-all Game 3 at 4 p.m. on Wednesday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The Bulldogs won their lone crown in 1954, and a victory will snap the league’s longest title drought of 60 years.
A win in the deciding Game 3 will also make the No. 4 Bulldogs the lowest seeded team to win the crown since the league adapted the Final Four format in 1994.
“We’ll use these [remaining practice days] wisely,” NU coach Eric Altamirano said of the Bulldogs’ week-long preparation. “We’ll come out ready to play.”
The Tamaraws claimed the opener, 75-70, but the Bulldogs leveled the series with a dominating 62-47 Game 2 win.
Troy Rosario came out firing early and got huge help from Gelo Alolino, Alfred Aroga and Glenn Khobuntin to lead the Bulldogs, who survived their fourth do-or-die contest this season.
Just to reach the title round, the Bulldogs had to fight for the last semifinal slot against University of the East in a playoff and overcome the twice-to-beat advantage of top-ranked Ateneo in the Final Four.
And the Bulldogs definitely want to defy the odds again, just like a few weeks ago, and even back then in their first title run.
In 1954, the Bulldogs likewise needed to get past the Tamaraws–already tagged as a powerhouse then–in the last game of a four-team final round to clinch their first championship.
Mentored by Skip Guinto, the Bulldogs rallied and pulled off an upset over the Tamaraws, 41-36, to complete a three-game sweep of the round-robin finals.
The NU team, bannered by Antonio Villamor and A. Dela Cruz, celebrated in front of a crowd of 9,000 at Rizal Memorial Coliseum, according to reports from newspaper archives.
But since that glorious year, the closest the Bulldogs got to a championship was in 1970 when they lost to University of the East in the Finals.
So now that they’re again just a win away of a title, the Bulldogs hope to bring back the same combination of guts and a great game to outlast the favored Tamaraws.
“We just have to keep doing what we do, like what we did [in Game 2],” said Altamirano.