THE MANDATORY UST POST

(This article was inspired by the "Mighty Mighty Tigers" article of Paolo Mariano, one of the best writers of Solar Sports. Bawas na ambag ko sa inuman!)

No team in the UAAP has been a bigger tease than the UST Growling Tigers. With a loaded lineup that includes the most dominant big man this side of college basketball, a slew of long, hyper-athletic, sweet-shooting wingmen, and a steady, pass-first point guard, UST looked liked another dynasty in the making. That dynasty never happened. It didn't even come close to happening.

As it turned out, that stunning 2006 championship run was nothing more than a mirage, an aberration, a proverbial date with destiny.

It was a sweet date with destiny, all right. But that was two years ago. Now, destiny beckons only failure and heartbreak for these Tigers.

Most of UST's failures and heartaches over the past two years have been self-inflicted, a convuluted case of a talented team shooting itself not only in the foot, but in the head. Mostly, these wondrously talented Tigers just self-destructed in the most inappropriate of moments, like when they failed to box-out Maui Villanueva in that heartbreaking buzzer-beating loss to La Salle, or when Clark Bautista and Francis Allera both jacked-up forced, horribly ill-advised threes in the dying moments of their torrid near-comeback against UE.

With that collection of talent, UST should have been gunning for their third straight title this season instead of watching the Final Four on TV, but that's exactly what these Tigers will do. Disappointing it is, but surprising it isn't. These Tigers were good--extremely good, in fact--but they were just as vulnerable, just as flawed. These Tigers were long on talent, athleticism, and versatility, but they were ostensibly short on basketball IQ. In a way, these Tigers were all brawn and no brains, or in the paraphrased words of sportscaster extraordinaire Bill Velasco, they were short of something in-between the ears. In the end, this one vital flaw spelled the difference between two more championship runs and two seasons of heartbreak.

At the end of the day, one man has to take responsibility for UST's disheartening spiral from champions to also-rans. That man is UST coach Pido Jarencio. Fair game or not, coach Pido has to owe responsibility for the team's failures these past two seasons. He has to because he is the biggest reason why these Tigers have underachieved, and along the way, became poster boys for no-conscience-shooting, horrific decision-making, and fourth quarter slip-ups.

Coach Pido's inability to get up-to-speed with the Xs and Os of the game, for one, doomed these Tigers. He got away with it in 2006 because of his sheer motivational genius and a steady dose of Jojo Duncil in crucial stretches. Now, coach Pido's motivational tactics just weren't enough anymore, and he didn't have a Duncil to knock-in those cold-blooded jumpers down the stretch of games. This season, no team other than perennial bottom-feeders UP, NU, and Adamson was as poorly-coached as UST. Watch again tapes of UST and see if the Tigers consistently ran any discernable plays other than the pick-and-roll and the pick-and-pop. Moreover, coach Pido's mismanagement of games--slow in-game adjustments, crazy substitution patterns, and untimely or uncalled timeouts--cost UST at least four very winnable games.

But more than coach Pido's deficiencies on the Xs and Os of the game, his biggest shortcoming was his inability to teach the game to his players. At this level, coaching has as much to do with teaching the game as making adjustments and calling plays. Coach Pido arguably teached these Tigers how to play the game, but evidently, he didn't do it well enough. Most of these Tigers were fundamentally unsound (e.g., overhandling the ball, too early turning the corner on a pick, giving up the baseline on defense, poor entry passes to the post). Some didn't even know the difference between a good shot and a dreadfully horrific one.

Coach Pido had his time in 2006, but he has worn out his welcome at UST. His 3Ps, magical in '06, are now ancient memory, buried beneath a steady downpour of hearbreaking losses and an endless stream of "what-could-have-beens."

But while a bulk of the blame has to go to coach Pido, these Tigers should still be crucified for underachieving, for failing to play to their full potentials, for failing to live up to the overwhelming expectations sparked by that 2006 championship run. These Tigers deserve it as much as their coach does. Francis Allera deserves to be harangued for his dreadful shot selection; Clark Bautista for his shoot-first, shoot-second mentality; Dylan Ababou for his disappearing acts in fourth quarters; Jeric Fortuna for his dubious decision-making; Kazim Mirza, for his "shoot-when-I-see-the-rim mentality"; Mark Canlas for his "I'm-missing-in-action" season, and even Jervy Cruz for his "I'm-only-playing-hard-on-offense" approach.

These Tigers shot themselves in the head these past two seasons, and they, too, deserve the harshest of criticisms for doing so.

From now until the start of Season 72, the powers-at-be that run UST Basketball will surely leave no stone unturned in making sure that UST reestablishes itself as the preeminent power in the UAAP. And as they chart the course of UST basketball, they'll have two heartbreaking season's worth of lessons to chew on.

For the meantime, all the UST community can do is wait for another date with destiny. After that, may be, just may be, a dynasty can finally be reborn.