It’s that time of year again. Nope, folks, I am not referring to the Jose Mari Chan season, which starts as early as September. I am talking about the Season 86 UAAP Men’s Basketball Championship, now down to two protagonists, UP and DLSU, left standing after an interesting year of relatively balanced line-ups that produced some exciting and surprising results.

You might recall that I usually come up with a fearless forecast at the start of each season. But this year, I didn’t. I even passed up the opportunity to buy a season ticket. Why? Well, truth to tell, I am not a masochist.

After frustratingly watching the Blue Eagles during their usual pre-UAAP string of warm-up summer tournaments, both here and abroad, scramble, stumble, fumble, and bumble in an interminable stretch of forget-about-it performances, I knew in my heart that even a big dose of Tab Baldwin coaching magic and a barrage of Hail Marys would not do the trick for the defending champions in Season 86.

But of course, as every true-blue Blue Eagles fanatic would do, with fingers crossed, I still hoped and prayed that a miracle would happen. So what happened? No miracles. The inaugural match-up between the Blue Eagles and the NU Bulldogs was a blast. Not for Ateneo, though.

The Bulldogs blasted Ateneo out of the water with a lopsided win, 77-64, matching Season 85’s upset win by NU, 78-74 against the Eagles. However, the heartbeats of thousands of Loyola loyalists skipped faster with glee when Ateneo, in their second game, surprisingly eked out a 77-72 win over its arch-rival, the much-heralded pre-season favorite De La Salle, this year’s team to beat alongside the UP Maroons.

The third game proved to be another bust as party pooper Adamson at the last second in overtime, sneakily threw a jab to the glass jaws of the sputtering on-again, off-again Eagles, 74-71.

The Eagles continued anew on their roller coaster ride by beating the dangerously reformatted UE Warriors, 76-69, in their next game. But again, in their fifth game, the Eagles’ perennial underdog nemesis, FEU Tamaraws, broke the hearts of the true Blues with an overtime win, 66-61. A pair of streaks of sorts with contrasting outcomes commenced when Ateneo walloped so-so also-ran UST, 97-77, followed by another totally unexpected win over the formidable UP Fighting Maroons, 99-89, in overtime, first round-ending thriller.

Second-round opening hostilities saw the Blue Eagles heartbreakingly derailed once more by speed demon LJ Gonzalez of the unpredictable FEU Tamaraws in a buzzer-beating seesaw game, 62-59, which was followed by a Malick Diouf-dominated 65-60 win by the revenge-seeking Maroons over Ateneo.

In the next game, NU continued its mastery over Ateneo with a 65-61 win, putting the Eagles dangerously close to not even making the Final Four. Keeping its flickering playoff hopes alive, however, Ateneo easily put away cellar dweller UST, 67-59, and finally got the better of the Falcons, 62-58. All the Eagles needed next was for Adamson to lose to the UE Red Warriors or, better still, do a repeat over the streaking De La Salle Green Archers.

But, alas, it was not to be, as the basketball gods had other ideas. The Falcons nipped the Red Warriors at literally the last second, 63-61, with a Hail Mary 3-point shot, while the Green Archers got back at the Eagles, 72-69, led by the deadly quadruple quartet of leading MVP contender Kevin Quiambao, sweet-shooting Evan Nelle, rebounding and dunking behemoth Michael Philips, and shooting speedster Mark Nonoy. This scenario set the stage for a win-or-go-home game between the twin birds of prey, the Eagles and the Falcons.

Starting with a blistering pace of 3-point shots led by rookie streak shooters Jared Brown and Mason Amos, Ateneo never looked back as it finally and firmly stamped finis to Adamson’s aspirations, 70-48, enabling the Eagles to maintain their streak of consecutive participation in the Final Four dating all the way back to 1999, except for an outlier in 2013.

This, however, proved to be the last One Big Fight hurrah for Ateneo as the Eagles bowed to the mighty UP Fighting Maroons, 57-46. The game was far from being a pushover by the Maroons as both teams clamped down tightly in their defenses, and it was a nip-and-tuck affair until the last few minutes when the Eagles ran out of steam as Diouf again took over with a double-double performance completely outclassing Ateneo’s one-and-done center, the clueless Joseph Mabasa.

Season 86 Finals will definitely be a humdinger of a fight as the Archers easily overcame the Bulldogs, 97-73, to seal a showdown with the Fighting Maroons.

Who will emerge as the victor? The Archers have a hot momentum going, and their firepower is awesome, but of course, my heart is for the Maroons. UP Fight!

Until next week… OBF!

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