It will be the first time in UAAP history that powerhouse Ateneo will take on University of the Philippine in the championship round of the men’s basketball tournament.
The Blue Eagles are the defending champions after wrestling the title away from De La Salle in 2017, their ninth, while the Fighting Maroons went all out in Season 81 to reach their first finals since winning the championship in 1986.
Ateneo reached the finals with a 12-2 record in the eliminations and an easy 80-61 win over Far Eastern University in the Final Four while UP had to gut through the preliminaries with an 8-6 card and do a little more in the semifinals.
The Fighting Maroons had to overcome Adamson University’s twice-to-beat advantage and take a close 89-87 overtime win in the do-or-die to set up their bout with the defending champions.
This tough road, Soaring Falcons head coach Franz Pumaren said, may have put UP in the disadvantage in the best-of-three battle starting Saturday.
“Well, advantage right now is in Ateneo. Why? UP’s going to be tired because of all the emotions and everything, it’s also tired physically,” said Pumaren who witnessed his team, which finished the eliminations with a 10-4 card, falter by an average of two points in the Final Four.
“The way UP’s playing, with the crowd support, it’s like a typhoon surge and it’s hard to stop.”
It was impossible for Pumaren not to notice UP community’s torrential outpour of support for the Fighting Maroons with majority of 20,944 patrons who packed Smart Araneta Coliseum on Wednesday sporting a maroon shirt.
“The Maroons won purely by heart and because of the support of the community, and that was very good for the UAAP.”
But UP would need much more than heart when it faces Ateneo, which swept the Fighting Maroons in the eliminations.