TGTBATU: Where Aloy Taplah wants to be like Tony Romo

Opening Day is here and it's time for the first installment of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The premise is self-explanatory. Each game day, I'd bring the good, the bad and the ugly things that happened in the day's games.

The Good:
The muses: Like come on, you should've seen how the JRU muse... uh... "bounced" around. I meant that in a good way.

Letran defense: If you want hardcore, macho hoops, watch the NCAA games. Players get bruised, bloodied just by breathing the air on the court.

Calvin Abueva's efficiency: Whatever the reason, the Beast stayed for only a few minutes on court. However, Abueva, for every minute that he is in, has at least a point. That's efficiency.

San Beda's fastbreak: The secret for San Beda's success relies on their bigs: they get the rebound, that leads to a fastbreak that often results in two points.

The bad:
JRU offense: Just as how good San Beda's offense is, is just how bad JRU's offense during the game. It's prehistoric: dump the ball on Joe Etame and pray to the gods something happens.

The referees: Especially in the first game, the referees called on every foul in the books. Let the children play, so to speak. This is not the NBA where David Stern needs Dwayne Wade or LeBron James to make money.

Studio 23 lighting: People in the internets complained of really bad reception. I thought the reception was too bright, which I liked since I had bad eyesight. Is this where the money went for those HDTV equipments? (Yeah, I know, Studio 23's broadcast was in SDTV. Just saying.)

The ugly:
Papa Boyet and the San Sebastian president: God bless the good priest, but that interview made Ron Artest cry.

Aloy Taplah wants to be Tony Romo: Hey kid, this is not the NFL where you'd perform a forward pass in each and every position! Watch some rugby union games, for a change!

The Stag who wanted to be Jacob: As someone in PinoyExchange pointed out, if it weren't for the antlers we would've thought that the guy was wearing a wolf costume. Maybe he wanted to be Jacob. San Sebastian Team Jacobs squeeeeeeeeeeee.

NCAA preseason winners/losers

As the lineups are revealed, who and which teams would be the winners and losers this upcoming NCAA season? Let's track them down:

Winners:
San Beda Red Lions: Although San Beda had quite a few players lost to graduation, what they held over will be more than enough to keep them in the hunt for the twice to beat advantage. Add to that key pickups and the RL is a lock for at least a semifinals berth.

Calvin Abueva: If you've seen the overly silly allegations of Abueva using roids in the internets during last year's playoffs, you can only be sure he'd be raring to go out more this season, especially with Jimbo Aquino leaving.

EAC Generals: While the status of their Malaysian-Chinese pick-up maybe uncertain, if he does get the green light, the Generals may have a better performance in the NCAA season compared with their miserable stint in the summer leagues.

Kevin Alas: Last year's semifinal game vs. San Beda was the passing of the torch at Letran. RJ Jazul deferred the last shot to Kevin Alas, and although he missed, it shows he is more than willing to take the big shot.

Jonathan Banal: After missing last season due to injury, Banal is looking to make up for lost time. With a respectable finish to last year's tournament, Mapua is seen as one of the sleepers of the tournament, with some even tagging them as Final Four contender.

UPHSD Altas: Who told you PCU is gone for good? Their players are now with their 2004 adversary Perps, and with Boris Aldeguer at the helm, this team has nowhere to go but up.

Male hoops fans: We have at least four new NCAA courtside reporters! Ain't that sweet?

Losers:
Arellano Chiefs: With Gio Ciriacruz lost to graduation, the Chiefs may find a tougher road ahead even with Leo Isaac at the helm.

JRU Heavy Bombers: As what Mike Abasolo said, the Bombers may have an intact line-up, but the loss of John Wilson, their only big-time scorer, needs to be filled up. It's up to Marvin Hayes and company to fill that void.

The two Perps players found to be ineligible: Using spurious documents, those two players might find themselves unable to play in any NCAA for rest of their lives. This may also affect Aldeguer's rotation, but fortunately, it happened before the season, and before wins were tallied. As we all know, any wins where those players would've played are forfeited.

Andrei Felix: Hey at least Jennylyn Mercado named her child after him. Uyyyyyy showbiz.

Student-athletes: With the first round only having two Monday games, expect the tournament to drag on forever; plus expect some days lost to bad weather and we'd be playing basketball by the time students enroll for the second semester.

True Colors: Golden Triumph

So the NCAA season ended "unexpectedly" with the San Sebastian Stags sweeping the three-time defending champions San Beda Red Lions via a 15-point blowout in Game 2 in front of a partisan crowd at the Big Dome. With Borgie Hermida bloodied, Jimbo Aquino carried off to the showers, and Anthony Del Rio injured at the bench, if there was a game 3, the two teams have to use their Team B players (of course that won't be allowed).

At the end, Season 85 showed its true colors: Gold and Red. The Red and White will have to wait one more year to have a chance of reclaiming the championship. Jimbo Aquino limped away the winner, and Borgie Hermida did not just have tears flowing from his eyes as the Red Lions were humbled in the mecca of Philippine sports.

But lemme scrutinize some points pointed (duh) out throughout the internets:

Borgie Hermida was bloodied and apparently has an eye fracture. His mom almost had a heart attack. Yeah, not to sound pathetic, but Letranites didn't make a big deal out of it when Rey Guevarra was hit by Sudan Daniel on the way down. Everything comes back at you. Basketball is a contact sport. You should watch ice hockey, those ice skates slice of fingers like a hot knife through butter.

The game was luto. Like seriously, this only happens in the NBA.

Calvin Abueva is into drugs. Lemme put it this way, even if you inject me a ton of steroids, I won't be able to perform as good as him. The point? Steroid or no steroid he's good.

San Sebastian is the all-Filipino champion. Guess what, you can get imports too. So does that mean Letran is the last all-Filipino champion? How about Mark Andaya? (LOL) Which brings me to PCU, but Gabby Espinas came from Subic and that's where the former U.S. Naval Base is located, wait, who am I kidding. It's common knowledge that Espinas has foreign blood. So it's Letran 2003? What's next rooting out the mestizos?

Bedans throwing coins. Yeah next time, stop saying "Beda tuloy laway." Alain Katigbak did better: he makes a living pissing off basketball players.

Mike Abasolo had too much coffee. Dude, next time, drink tea.

Andrei Felix pwns Boom Gonzalez. At least that's right.

Who the hell is Archie Inigo? He's a high school player? He looks like he's Grade 6! He's underage! We only allow high schoolers who repeat fourth year three times to make sure he stays at our team for the longest time! Ban the Squires! LOL

Which brings me to the deciding game of the NCAA Juniors Finals this Thursday at the Arena. San Beda allowed two championships to slip away from their grasp this semester. A loss from either school will be a disappointment: Letran with their 17-0 start, and San Beda for coach Ato Badolato's final year.

Final NCAA Season 85 basketball standings

NCAA's looooong elimination round is over, and if they'll base it purely on quotients, this is how the teams stack up, after the jump.

Updated October 16: Team standings without the guest teams

#	Seniors	W	L	PCT	GB	H2H	GAvg
1	San Sebastian	16	2	.889	--	1–1	1.014
2	San Beda	16	2	.889	--	1–1	0.987
3	JRU	15	3	.833	1
4	Letran	12	6	.667	4
5	Arellano	8	10	.444	8
6	EAC	6	12	.333	10	3–1
7	Mapua	6	12	.333	10	2–2
8	CSB	6	12	.333	10	1–3
9	UPHSD	3	15	.167	13
10	AUF	2	16	.111	14

#	Juniors	W	L	PCT	GB	H2H	GAvg
1	Letran	17	1	.994	--	1–1	1.080
2	San Beda	17	1	.994	--	1–1	0.926
3	San Sebastian	13	5	.722	4
4	UPHSD	11	7	.611	6	1–1	1.057
5	JRU	11	7	.611	6	1–1	0.946
6	LSGH (CSB)	8	10	.444	9
7	MHSS (Mapua)	5	13	.278	12	1–1	1.019
8	Arellano	5	13	.278	12	1–1	0.981
9	EAC	3	15	.167	14
10	AUF	0	18	.000	17

Without guest teams:

#	Seniors	W	L	PCT	GB	H2H	GAvg
1	San Sebastian	10	2	.833	--	1–1	1.014
2	San Beda	10	2	.833	--	1–1	0.987
3	JRU	9	3	.750	1
4	Letran	7	5	.583	3
5	CSB	3	9	.250	7
6	Mapua	2	10	.167	8
7	UPHSD	1	11	.084	9

#	Juniors	W	L	PCT	GB	H2H	GAvg
1	Letran	11	1	.917	--	1–1	1.080
2	San Beda	11	1	.917	--	1–1	0.926
3	San Sebastian	7	5	.583	4
4	UPHSD	5	7	.417	6	1–1	1.057
5	JRU	5	7	.417	6	1–1	0.946
6	LSGH (CSB)	2	10	.167	9
7	MHSS (Mapua)	1	11	.083	10

Pick your poison

Whoever said college basketball is over needs a good spanking from Roman Polanski. Like come on, we still have the NCAA to get over with, and with ten teams, you can't ignore them, unless your eyes can only see blue tints.

The elimination round ends (yes, it'll end at the middle of October) with the pivotal #1 vs. #2 game: San Sebastian vs. San Beda. However, it seems that Baste has already locked up the twice to beat advantage and has the luxury of "picking" their opponent. Coach Ato Agustin has a couple of choices:

Win against San Beda: They'll be the #1 seed and face Letran without Rey Guevarra (thank YOU, Sudan Daniel). The last time Baste and Letran met as #1 and #4, Letran prevailed with the likes of Kerby Raymundo and Christian Calaguio at the helm; Calaguio even silenced the crowd using the familiar "keep quiet" gesture.

Lose against San Beda: They'll figure in a playoff against... San Beda for the #1 seed. If they lose they'll face JRU, if they win, they'll face Letran. Considering they've beaten JRU soundly twice this season, Coach Ato might pass this up.

Or you can look at the illustration below to map out your team's path to the Finals:

San Beda def. San Sebastian

San Sebastian def. San Beda

It's not only Coach Ato who has choices; Coach Frankie Lim can also pick his poison provided they win against Baste. They can choose among JRU and Letran in the semifinals. San Beda split their elimination round series with JRU, and Letran was beaten by the Red Lions in their elimination round meetings, the second round via a blowout. Lim may want to avoid JRU and face Letran in the semifinals, so they'd have to beat Baste twice in a span of three days for that to happen.

Coaches who have no options at this point are Ariel Vanguardia and Louie Alas. Vanguardia is praying for a Baste win so that they can still play for the #2 seed, a virtual best-of-3 series with San Beda. Louie Alas has no option at all, and with Guevarra's injury, his options, wait I just told you he has no options. They sure did beat the Stags in the second round, and Guevarra top scored, pumping in 27 points in that win (in their loss, he scored a still sizable 16 points).

So two coaches have plenty of options, two have none, but expect a grind-out postseason for the NCAA, and more games of prime commentating from Andrei Felix.

Final NCAA Season 85 first round standings

(Note: "True Colors" is this space's NCAA column designed to have a slant, but not necessarily bias, toward schools other than that one located in Mendiola. --Howard the Duck)
Here are the end of the first round team standings in the 85th NCAA season:

Seniors    W   L    PCT   GB   Tie
SSC-R      9   0  1.000   --
San Beda   8   1   .889    1
JRU        7   2   .778    2
Arellano   5   4   .556    4
Letran     5   4   .556    4    +8
CSB        4   5   .444    5    −8
UPHSD      3   6   .333    6
EAC        2   7   .222    7
Mapua      1   8   .111    8   +38
AUF        1   8   .111    8   −38

After the jump, the games that were used to decide which of the tied teams ranked higher, and the juniors' standings.

Arellano def. Letran 81–73
Mapua def. AUF 101–63

Juniors    W   L    PCT   GB
Letran     9   0  1.000   --
San Beda   8   1   .889    1
JRU        7   2   .778    2
SSC-R      6   3   .667    3
UPHSD      5   4   .556    4
LSGH       4   5   .444    5
Arellano   3   6   .333    6
EAC        2   7   .222    7
Mapua      1   8   .111    8
AUF        0   9   .000    9

NCAA first round round-up

(Note: "True Colors" is this space's NCAA column designed to have a slant, but not necessarily bias, toward schools other than that one located in Mendiola. --Howard the Duck)

We're now in the homestretch of the NCAA first round, and we've started to discover several truths:

• San Sebastian can rely on several players to explode in a certain game, which can wreak havoc on defensive strategies.
• JRU still has a penchant in losing important games.
• San Beda can only be beaten if you frustrate Sudan Daniel.
• Letran has hidden something in their OT win vs. the Generals.
• The Chiefs bench is so shallow, if you tire them out you'd win.
• The Blazers has no post presence, thereby simplifying an opponent's defending strategy.

It will probably boil down to six teams: San Sebastian, San Beda, JRU, Letran, CSB and Arellano. There could be a possibility for a triple tie for the last Final Four berth. If this happens, the teams with the best "quotient" gets the bye for the final playoff. San Sebastian is a lock for a Final Four berth, for the twice to beat advantage, that's an altogether different matter. The JRU-San Beda game this Monday will answer several questions, and can probably determine which of the two teams will clinch the twice to beat advantage.

As for Letran, Arellano and CSB, they'd have to beat at least one team from the top three to ascertain themselves of a Final Four berth. Letran came close against JRU, not-so-close against San Beda, and will test San Sebastian in the penultimate (if the MANCOM doesn't change it) game of the first round. Arellano lost all three games, and only came close against JRU, while CSB all suffered double-digit losses against the top three.

The Chiefs have the easiest schedule among the middle three, with games against AUF and Mapua. Should they win these two games, they'd break the .500 barrier, and can either can better or tie Letran's record, depending on the result of the Letran-Baste game. The CSB Blazers wound up a game below .500.

For the bottom four teams, the games between these four are a must-see. Those games will be hard-fought and tightly-contested. On their games against the middle three, they might not win, but it depends on how the games are scheduled (hiding certain players from scouts), or if injuries happen. It is safe to say that if they fail to beat the other three teams from the bottom four, and they don't manage to upset the leaders, they won't make it to the playoffs.

Now for the juniors tournament, it seems that the Squires are on their way on sweeping the first round, but they should hurdle the defending champions first. But if the Red Cubs-Staglets game is any indication (Red Cubs won by 25), and that the Squires beat the Red Cubs by 15, it seems that the Squires are unbeatable this season. The closest any team has gotten to the Squires are, get this, the UPHSD Altalettes, the perpetual whipping boys of the NCAA prior to the return of the Red Robins and the addition of the guest teams, where the Squires won only by 5. The other legitimate contender that managed to hang close with the Squires are the Greenies of LSGH, and they were beaten by ten, and the Alalettes won over the Greenies in OT. In fact, the Baby Perps have a legit chance for a Final Four berth, considering they were beaten by the currently #4 Staglets by two points in their encounter.

Which probably means that the Squires will beat the Staglets silly, and Jarelan Tampus would penetrate his way into the lane like Hayden Kho, and with the supporting cast can beat the starting 5 of any other high school team in the country, it seems that the Squires are on their way for a rare 18–0.

But not if the Altalettes can help it. When was the last time the NCAA relied on the UPHSD Altalettes for a win to prevent a sweep? Never?

As for other non-basketball but still related to the league matters, I guess this would be the first time that the NCAA first round will end later than the UAAP's. I don't know if the organizers knew about this, but the second round will take an insane amount of time to finish, plus the fact that the NCAA is on its way on instituting playoffs for tied teams irregardless of their standings in the top 4.

If this is the case, they should probably have more games played on a gamedate, or allocate more gamedates. This will mean that some games won't be televised (which doesn't seem like a good idea), or that they'd have to use another arena aside from the San Juan Arena, considering that it is also used by the UAAP for their men's and women's games.

If we'd go through the usual scheduling of four games per gamedate, the second round will end around at the end of September or early October, and the playoffs might end during the semestral break! I don't know if this is by design or if they didn't see it but this is something worth looking at.

Is it Friday already?

(Note: "True Colors" is this space's NCAA column designed to have a slant, but not necessarily bias, toward schools other than that one located in Mendiola. --Howard the Duck)

So we are nearing the mid-way point of the first round of eliminations, and we've probably seen a bit of trending with the teams:

At the top of the pack: JRU, San Sebastian and San Beda
At the middle of the road: Letran
Not that far behind: CSB, Mapua and Arellano
The rear: UPHSD, EAC, AUF

And not to be outdone, Juniors' action will pick up a notch as a potential game between undefeated teams looms ahead between the Squires and the Red Cubs.

Top of the pack: JRU, San Sebastian and San Beda
These three will fight foot and nail for the two twice to beat berths in the semifinals, and even if the #2 has the twice to beat advantage over #3 it won't be easy. So while it is said that there is no virtual difference between #1 and #2, this year, the race for #1 will be hotly contested by these three teams, as the #1 will avoid the other two, at least up to the Finals.

Despite winning against San Beda, Baste seems to be the weakest among the three since the Generals were able to cut the lead to a "dozen" with less than 5 minutes remaining. Or maybe that was just the A-Bomb pulling out his starters early. Or maybe that was it: a bad coaching decision might haunt you if you're playing a high-caliber team.

At the middle of the road: Letran
Sitting by their lonesome are the Letran Knights: It can be said that the first two games were bad loses, and will probably haunt the Knights if they fail to catch the top 3, but with big wins against Mapua and Perps, they can look forward to their Week 4 games vs. CSB and SBC. An (expected?) win against CSB will propel them to a 3-game winning streak enroute to their much-anticipated clash with the San Beda Red Lions on Friday. (Still no word yet if it'll be moved to the second game. Stay tuned.)

Not that far behind: CSB, Mapua and Arellano
These three suffered big time setbacks last week, all from top four teams: CSB vs. SBC (20 points), Mapua vs. Letran (22 points) and Arellano vs. JRU (9 points). Arellano made it worse with an even worse loss from one of the teams from the rear (10 points vs. UPHSD) leading some to say they caught Letran on a bad day.

The three teams will still face one of the teams from the top four in two weeks' time, if they win those, they can close the gap with Letran and make it a 4-team race for the last semifinal berth.

The rear: UPHSD, AUF, EAC
With Raffy Ynion out, an already grim outlook for the Perps got even bleaker, while AUF will have the toughest schedule among the three with their next four games will be against the top four. As for EAC, no one expected them to finish 0-18, and they might win one against the teams from the rear, but probably not from the other teams at the top.

Undefeated: Squires vs. Red Cubs
A certainly overlooked match-up, a potential game between undefeated teams (if Letran wins over LSGH on Monday) will set the juniors hoops world buzzing as the two old high school rivals reignite their rivalry. The now-attainment of the Squires as a "superpower" status in the NCAA ranks, while the Red Cubs are out to reclaim their lost crown as the top high school team in the land. If the Red Cubs stop Jarelan Tampus who has been scoring at will lately, the Bedans will have a close fight against the Letranites.

An almost-certain preview of the juniors' finals, both teams are hungry for a championship: the Squires have been in the Finals for 2 straight seasons, and last won in 2001 with then high school players Rey Guevarra, RJ Jazul, OJ Cua and Jay-R Reyes, while the Red Cubs last entered the finals in 2005, and last won in 2004 with Jay-R Taganas and Ogie Menor at the helm. A title will give a fitting send-off for graduating, and highly-prized players-turned-freshies next year.

True Colors: Are U for real, AU?

(Note: "True Colors" is this space's NCAA column designed to have a slant, but not necessarily bias, toward schools other than that one located in Mendiola. --Howard the Duck)

So we've been through the obligatory opening ceremonies, that really nobody cares about that much. Those people in Araneta came to see hoops, not some gays hanging a la the Ringling Brothers came to town.

With that said, the ceremonies were fine, despite the generally bad reviews from the rest of the cyberspace bums. Like what were you expecting? Santino and company singing May Bukas Pa? And the Ringling Brothers?

The teams all have their opening trajectories by now, and with the wins and losses counting, their performance the rest of the season will be determined partly with what happened in late June-early July; after all, the Stags last year would've clinched a twice to beat advantage in the Final Four if they would've won at least one game from their 1-4 start.

The undefeated teams:
CSB: Despite all of the Blazers enrolled in the Richard del Rosario School of Free-Throw Shooting, the boys across from "Main" had a despicable free-throw shooting afternoon against the boys across the NLEX; or maybe it was due to their enrollment to that esteemed FT-shooting school was the cause. If not probably from the great distance traveled by the Danes, they would've not burned out at the end of the fourth and stole one. Isn't it ironic that Mapua's own woeful FT shooting game CSB their 2nd win? It's their best start since a 3-0 start in 2005, and we all know what happened there -- actually, maybe not everyone since the cyberspace bums care a lot about that team across Taft.

JRU: John Cena's long lost brother carries the cudgels for the school that specializes in tasty pastries. With virtually no major substractions from last year, Ariel Vanguardia finally might pay Frankie Lim back for what he did against the former in PLDT's PBA franchise some years back.

San Sebastian: Who says you need Buenafe and Bringas? At least in the NCAA you can have neither and still sport a 2-0 record, with one win coming from the school in which an alumnus also "supports" the school the Bringas studies(?) at.

One loss ain't that much:
San Beda: The Red Army was ecsastic with a blow out worthy of a glass of Guinness but it all came crashing (well, not really) down with a loss against their U-Belt neighbors. Was that a preview of the playoffs?

Arellano: We've been spoonfed to believe that AU is the second-strongest guest team behind EAC. They've proved the doubters wrong by winning against the Generals, and the school in which the General studied. Too bad the Red Lions don't lose back-to-back in the eliminations since Sam Ekwe -- and Sudan Daniels -- came to Mendiola.

AUF: As for the "weakest" guest school, who knew they would take CSB to three quarters, and beat the Generals assuring themselves of an un-winless hoops season. If conditioned, Matthew Carney will take the NCAA bigs to school. The Great Danes will make Scooby Doo proud.

Cold starts?
Letran: What the Knights should avoid early in the game is by falling behind by a big margin, since RJ and Rey can't save them when the going gets tough that easily. They almost made against JRU and AU, but "almosts" don't count. And in the long run, the Knights must avoid falling behind early in the tourney with 6 of 10 teams fishing early.

EAC: So is this the best guest team? What? It seems they are playing in a Ryan Gregorio system: isolation plays for the full 40 minutes. Unless you have a James Yap and Kerby Raymundo, that system would take you nowhere.

UPHSD: With Bai out, Perps got DLSZ tactician Boris Aldeguer, and no one else. In basketball, a good coach in a good team would clinch the title, a bad coach in a good team a playoffs stint, and a good coach in a bad team delivers the same result of a bad team with a bad coach: lots of time fishing.

Mapua: Leo Isaac must've seen this a mile away, and Chito Victolero didn't really have any choice, but all is not lost for the Cards. A leader is all they need. Too bad KDP's in the Alaska Aces... on their injured list.

Juniors' watch:
It looks like it's prime time for a San Beda-Letran finals series; with the Red Cubs blowing out the defending champions Staglets, and the Squires blowing out the Lighties. The other undefeated team LSGH, still has to face the "tough" squads; their wins were against guest AUF and nerds from Malayan Science.

(Spam: Think you know the UST Growling Tigers? Take the quiz. You'd need a Twitter account to continue. --Howard the Duck)

Colored stripes

Starting this college basketball season, since I won't be able to give play-by-play updates at least early in the season, we'd instead have weekly columns on the latest happenings on the UAAP and the NCAA: "Racing Stripes" for the UAAP and "True Colors" for the NCAA. Since we have Atenean, Lasallian and Diliman-centric columns already. Or whatever.

The columns go out every Saturday. Because college hoops season has begun.