Never shall we fail

A couple of days have already passed since the DLSU Green Archers were eliminated from the UAAP Season 77 Final Four by the FEU Tamaraws. Mac Belo’s buzzer beating three pointer to beat La Salle was one for the ages and will live on forever in the highlight reels, however it is a painful memory that we Lasallians would rather erase. Reality has sunk in, for most of us at least, that the Green Archers will not be able to defend their crown and take home a second consecutive championship. It was not meant to be, and fate was just not in DLSU’s favor. This year, we were simply on the wrong end of a fairytale ending.

After the painful loss to FEU, it took almost an hour for DLSU coach Juno Sauler, his staff, and his players to emerge from the dugout at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum. Many of the players looked like they had just cried or were holding back tears as they trickled out from the locker room, while others just hung their heads in disappointment. If this loss hurts for us–mere spectators who’ve never had to sacrifice several hours of our lives every day for training–I can imagine how much worse it feels for them. The coaching staff then came out a few moments later, with Sauler bringing up the rear, ready to speak with the press for one last time this UAAP season.

He did not point any fingers after the loss, one of his most admirable traits, but he did cite that the team’s spat with the injury bug hindered their progress and that they could have been better had they been healthier. The idea that this team could have performed at a much higher level is an exciting one, especially when you take into consideration that La Salle already managed to beat each team in the league at least once this season. This is a feat that no other squad was able to accomplish, whether this year’s finals protagonists FEU and NU or the top seeded ADMU.

Looking forward, the future is bright for this La Salle team, even with the departure of reliable veterans Almond Vosotros, Norbert Torres, and Yutien Andrada. The continued presence of Jeron Teng, Arnold van Opstal, and Jason Perkins next year, together with the rest of the squad’s holdovers, will ensure that DLSU will remain in contention for the championship. Ben Mbala and Josh Torralba, two highly-touted recruits who are finally eligible for the coming UAAP season after serving their residency, will join La Salle’s veterans and new recruits in the coming months as they duke it out for UAAP roster spots next year. After the Green Archers’ season-ending loss a few days ago, the highly-touted Mbala and Torralba stood outside the team’s locker room, with the former promising the members of the press who interviewed him that “Next year will be different”, an exciting message for the Lasallian community and an ominous one for the rest of the league.

Once again, La Salle is in the position where no less than a championship is expected from the team every year thanks to last year’s UAAP title run. Though it seems a bit too demanding to expect a championship from this team year in and year out, this stems from the Green Archers’ hallowed winning history. La Salle made it to the UAAP Final Four 15 out of 16 times (and advanced to the finals in 13 out of these 15 occasions) since its first edition in 1993 until 2008, only missing it in 2006 when the team was suspended due to eligibility issues of two reserves.

However, things took a turn for the worse in the next three years wherein the team had two disastrous campaigns in 2009 and 2011, finishing sixth in both years to sandwich a short-lived Final Four run in 2010. Historically, this was an extreme deviation from the norm for the Green Archers, but it effectively lowered everyone’s expectations for the coming years. It got to a point where close losses to our archrival ADMU Blue Eagles, who were at that time ransacking the UAAP en route to five championships from 2008 to 2012, were enough for Lasallians to go home contented and wearing a smile. A Final Four loss back in those days, like in 2010 against FEU and 2012 against Ateneo, merited hope and optimism from the community, behavior that would have been considered taboo as recently as the mid-2000s when the Green Archers were perennially running opponents off the court. However, last year’s run to the championship, which was admittedly sprinkled with a little luck and good timing, nudged the bar of expectations up by a few notches back to where it rightfully belongs.

After a few forgettable years, things are back to normal in terms of basketball along Taft Avenue. The Green Archers are again expected to dominate games and win the UAAP championship each and every year. If last year’s championship didn’t prove that things are back to the way that they were, I believe that this season’s early elimination and the reaction of the community does. Sure, we didn’t win it all, but this year showed us that the mystique of the Green Archers is back. Each team played their heart out against La Salle this year as the team reestablished itself as a perennial contender in the UAAP. It’s a relief that our short lived stretch of mediocrity is over and the days of opponents banding together to cheer against La Salle are back. Even our crowd, recently criticized by some for being lackadaisical, was cheering in full force in last week’s final game against FEU despite the absence of the DLSU Animo Squad during the first three quarters due to heavy traffic.

Seeing the disappointment in the faces of our players and coaches was consoling, only because it showed that next year, this team will be back and determined to take the championship back. Barely an hour after La Salle’s defeat, Sauler had a forward-looking attitude in the post game interview, something that can serve as an inspiration to all of us in the face of defeat even beyond the basketball court. When asked if he would take time off or immediately go back to the drawing board, Sauler mustered a rare smile and replied, “Drawing board? I’m gonna watch the video tonight even if it hurts.” It was reassuring to hear and despite the loss, it sent me the message that the days of mediocrity are over and for this team, the best is yet to come.