San Miguel Beer, the PBA’s most decorated franchise, is on the edge of a campaign-gone-sour following a stunning 134-132 overtime loss to Columbian on Sunday night.
The Beermen have 25 PBA championships—counting the league’s second Grand Slam and an unprecedented five straight titles in the Philippine Cup.
But as things stand, the proud club is now looking their daintiest after slipping to a 2-5 card to be two places out of the magic circle of eight teams that will advance to the Commissioner’s Cup playoffs.
And if their fortunes don’t change, their aspirations of a second Triple Crown sweep will go down in flames. Again.
But if there’s one team that could turn things around in a jiffy, it would be San Miguel.
The Beermen overcame one of the toughest tests in the league, when they crawled out of a 0-3 hole in the Finals against Alaska a few years back to highlight one of those five straight Philippine Cups.
That feat should be a reminder that the Beermen can get things done. But they have to act fast.
Austria and his charges will be needing no less than a sweep of their remaining four games to entertain thoughts of advancing to the playoffs without complications—and possibly falling on a level playing field.
Their remaining opponents are NLEX (2-7), Phoenix (4-4), Rain or Shine (3-4), and Meralco (3-6).
The league’s stats chief, Fidel Mangonon III, believes that it’s still too early to tell with a lot of the teams still having several games left to play.
“They could even make the middle of the pack,” Mangonon said. But that would mean sweeping their last four games.
Arwind Santos, San Miguel’s skipper and one of the longest-serving members of Austria’s battle-tested crew, was just as bullish.
“For now, we’ll just aim for the eighth spot,” he told reporters in Filipino. “We tried aiming higher. But for now, eighth spot would do. We could start from there.”
But falling to No. 8 is not exactly an enticing prospect, as that would put them on course toward battling the No. 1 team in the quarterfinals and needing to beat that squad two straight times to advance.
The last time the perennial powerhouse missed the playoffs was four years ago, also in this tournament, where the Beermen only won four of their 11 games for ninth spot.
It was the lone conference where coach Leo Austria was unable to steer his wards into the quarterfinals.
The outspoken Santos went on to share that Austria—who dodged reporters for a post-game interview after the loss to the Dyip—urged them to “turn to their pride.”
“He asked if we’re even going to allow ourselves to be defeated in our remaining games. It will all now depend on us.”