On Losing the Finals

It happens to the best of us. I had this feeling it would happen seeing how half-hearted the support was for this game. UST weren't the underdogs Ateneo had a +3.5 in the betting odds. +3.5 barely cuts it for game 2. >_<

I decided to watch thinking, what if? We could've won two championships last Saturday. But I guess, masyadong nang garapal 'yun. And so we went back to do POM and OR for two straight nights. We started Saturday evening and ended Monday morning (save for a few breaks to go home and remind our family that they still had a son/daughter). We had no sleep except for some powernaps that barely counted. @_@

Monday was game day. Sleep or no sleep I had to watch. I decided to cut Philo but I remembered I had to pass our paper which still lacked a conclusion, by the way. >_< So I went to school at 3 to finally finish my paper. All I needed was a couple of paragraphs but since my brain has long since lost its capacity to think profoundly, I finished at 3:30. I passed my paper personally, thinking Sir Mariano would understand how important this day was, and besides, I barely cut philo. ^_^

Non and I ran to the LRT to try and catch the game live. I hadn't planned on watching the game live, but Non had bleacher seats and the prospect of a championship on a game 3 was just too inviting. ^_^

We arrived to what looked like a good game. We were up, and you suddenly had that feeling that "Yeah, this should be worth it."

We all know what happened next. :-|

It was the most devastating moment in my college life: to see the last 3 seconds go by without a fight. UST won by 2 points. If I had bet on the Ateneo, I would have still won, but that would be a consuelo de bobo. I had to give it to them, they had their fairytale season. I just feel bad that I would never get a genuine big bonfire in my college life. Oh well, that's that. T_T

I noticed how Ateneans can still proudly sing the alma mater song despite losing and voices strained from shouting. I admired that pride. And so the lines, "Win or lose, it's the school we choose," are always sung emphatically as if to say, "I'm still an Atenean. How about you?" ^_^

It's really awkward going out of the Araneta, meeting all those yellow-clad fans along the way. You never really know how to respond seeing how they are so happy and festive, and you so down and empty. It's the worst feeling. I suggest that on these days, Araneta should provide separate exits for both fans. T_T

I guess it just wasn't our time. It wouldn't have been as bad had the game been a blowout. A close game just brought me expectations. I hate expecting because my entire history of expectations always came to a disappointing conclusion. This one is no different. I just feel sorry for Macky's good game.

For the Win

When Evangelista shot a jumper over Doug Kramer, he left Ateneo with a one-point deficit and only one second to make up for it. I was thinking, crap, the referees made this so. >_< They've been giving bad calls throughout the game. Winning this game was going to take nothing short of a miracle now. I thought if Fisher was able to win a game with only 0.4 seconds left, Ateneo shouldn't be too worried about 1 second. But who am I kidding? That was the NBA. This is UAAP. So who were they going to turn to? Chris or Jai, most probably. But Coach Norman wasn't thinking along those lines. Instead, he had Macky give the inbound pass to Doug, who was ironically left alone at point blank. All it took was one second. And the crowd went wild. Waaah. ^_^ Everyone went wild. UST on the other hand suddenly looked as if everyone came down with dengue. That had to hurt. :-| So who was the clutch player for Ateneo? It had to be Coach Black.

I have tickets for Thursday. If it is willed to be so, then I'll be watching to championship games live. Too bad La Salle isn't here to see this through. ^_^