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.