think rainbows

Huge things happen when you least expect it.

This is very fitting for the two games held today at the Araneta Coliseum for the start of the second round of action in the UAAP Season 73 Men’s Basketball tournament. The first game against the UE Red Warriors and the UST Growling Tigers was reminiscent of their first encounter during the opening day of the 73rd season of the UAAP last July 10. In that meet-up, UST draw first blood against the Warriors. UE has every right to keep their mindset to revenge against the Tigers who gave them their first defeat of the season during that game. And it worked well.

 Both teams had poor shooting during the first half, ending the first quarter at a 13-12 lead by UE. The second quarter ended at 32-30 with UE still at the lead. Thanks to Jeric Fortuna’s heroics, and the impressive offensive rebounding by the Tigers, they were able to keep up with the Warriors despite their 28% field goal shooting at the first half. UE didn’t have any intention to let go of their lead, and started a 7-0 run in the third quarter to slowly pull away from the gritty Tigers. UST’s offensive weapons were so off and couldn’t answer Martinez and Lee’s field goals as the latter even registered a 17 point lead against the Tigers. Things seemed to get worse for the Tigers and favored the Red Warriors, as UE pulled away with only their second win of the season at 75-65, thus ending UST's winning streak at the Big Dome.

As both teams were coming from wins during their last timeouts, the FEU Tamaraws and the Adamson Falcons try and keep their winning streak and end their foes’. The Tamaraws try and keep their record unblemished, while the Falcons try and keep their spot at solo second behind the Tamaraws. FEU started early on in the game and kept the lead against Adamson almost all the way until half time. The Falcons didn’t let the undefeated Tamaraws get ahead by a large margin and kept FEU’s lead at 33-36 into the third quarter.

FEU started their rally at the third quarter, and tried to stop the Falcons from drawing any nearer. But it was to become a different story in the fourth quarter. Adamson was able to keep up with FEU and was even able to get the lead at 59-58 with 3:40 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. It looked like the Falcons were the first ones to draw blood against the FEU Tamaraws and try to erase their unblemished record, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. FEU was able to get the lead once more thru an Aldrech Ramos basket and was up 63-62 with 6.8 seconds to go. The Falcons’ spirits soared higher than the Tamaraws’ as Camson made a huge put back from a Nuyles miss, and dealt FEU their first loss of the season, 64-63.

College basketball and its unpredictability is what make us all crave for more. We are seeing teams battle it out as if it’s the finals already, which is a good thing. There’s still a long way to go in the second round, we haven’t even seen the rematch between the Archers and the Eagles yet. We just have to watch out for more surprising outcomes as the UAAP Season 73 Men’s Basketball 2nd round of action continues.