SA nakalipas na collegiate basketball season, higit na makahulugan at malalim ang naging hangarin ng bawat koponan partikular ang mga nagtuos sa finals.
Kung ikukumpara sa sinundang 5-peat ng Ateneo Blue Eagles sa ilalim ng dating coach na si Norman Black, malayo pa ang back-to-back championships na kanilang nakamit sa ilalim ni coach Tab Baldwin.
Ngunit, para sa beteranong tactician, ang kanilang tagumpay ay may malalim na kahulugan dahil hindi lamang titulo ang kanilang inangkin at sinikap makamtan.
“First of all, back-to-back doesn’t look so important when you put it next to five in a row. It looks like a little bump on the road compared to that mountain that they did,” ani Baldwin.
“We want to pursue excellence,” aniya.
“You know, a championship is one measure of excellence, I guess. So if that’s a byproduct of the way that we do things, we hope that we continue to have championships in the future. Again that’s not the goal. That’s not what we set out to do.”
“Of course at the back of our minds in all honesty that’s an endgame for a team, to win a championship, but we just don’t talk too much about that. We talk more about how each one of these guys can be the best player they can be,” ayon pa kay Baldwin.
Para naman sa nakatunggali nilang UP Fighting Maroons, nagsilbi namang moral victory ang pagpasok nila sa kampeonato.
Bagamat hindi nakumpleto ang kanilang Cinderella run dahil hindi nila nawakasan ang kanilang 32-year title drought, halos para na ring nagkampeon ang Fighting Maroons sa kanilang naabot matapos ang mga pinagdaanang winless seasons, masaklap na mga kabiguan at mga panahong halos pakiramdam nila ay wala nang pumapansin sa kanila maging sa loob ng campus.
Bagama’t naging napakahirap ng kanilang pinagdaanan upang makaahon mula sa pagiging cellar dweller, nagbunga ang kanilang sakripisyo, mga paghihirap at pagtitiyaga.
Hindi man nagtagumpay sa laban, wagi naman ang tropa ni Coach Bo Perasol sa puso ng bawat miyembro ng komunidad ng Maroons.
“What I told them is that we cannot be focusing on what just happened. Right now after the game, we have to focus on the whole season,” wika ni Perasol. “We can’t be myopic in saying that we lost the game, of course we lost, but all in all, we became champions in our own rights.”
-Marivic Awitan
