Where Buzzkills and Hoping Happen…

Note: This is an old post from my Multiply site last July 19, 2008.

Third journal entry in three weeks. I guess I am on a roll. And it’s another UAAP blog entry. You can call me hardcore, die-hard, or addict. Go ahead. This is intended to be a continuation of last week’s entry. I am still going to write this because I have the sudden urge of passion to do so. Just don’t be a buzzkill, please?

Flying High Makes You Fall Harder
Buzzkill. Do you know such word? Actually, I often get this term from NBA columnists especially those who write fantasy columns. Coming from the Urban Dictionary, here is the meaning:

Buzzkill (n. or v.trans.)
1. Buzzkill, anything that takes the edge off your fluff, a downer, something that ruins your good mood; a killjoy.
2. (verb) to selectively and deliberately bring down someone's mood by actions that are designed to irritate, annoy or downright upset a person.

We experience buzzkills everyday. When you go all-in on a poker game because you had a full house at the opening flop but you suddenly lose because your opponent suddenly got a four-of-a-kind at the river. That’s a total buzzkill. When you fall for a girl and you feel that all is right in the world then she suddenly tells you that you’re just a friend in her eyes. That’s ultimate buzzkill. When your number one fantasy NBA draft pick gets injured the whole year (*ahem!* Gilbert Arenas! *ahem!*). That’s just a minor buzzkill as compared to the previous two (dammit Jeff! You’re killing the progression) When you get your hopes high that your basketball team will win the game then reality suddenly bites you when the opposing team pulled out a miracle comeback. That’s the buzzkill that I am going to discuss in this writeup.

Speaking of buzzkills, I am experiencing a major buzzkill right now. I got terribly sick after working on night shifts this week. Thank God for medicines, I have the temporary energy to write all these stuff down. All for the sake of passion.

It really feels bad when you wake up at the wrong side of the bed. It feels like there is something wrong in the world. It feels awful when your favorite team loses in an awful manner. Yes, buzzkills always happen in basketball games. Just watch the Game 4 of the NBA Finals. The LA Lakers experienced a major buzzkill when their arch-rivals, the Boston Celtics – came from the largest deficit to beat their Hollywood asses. But we have to discuss UAAP moments first so here are my top five buzzkills in the past few years.

This one is for all the Lasallians and the anti-Ateneans.

5. La Salle wins the ‘games that matter’ over Ateneo in the 2007 UAAP MBT Season. This could have been worse because La Salle was the team that eliminated us in that season but it has consuelo de bobo written all over it. We won more games against La Salle that year (3-2). Nonetheless, as Franz Pumaren said it was still two greater than three on this one (Consuelo de bobo nga e). The last game would have to be the worst in that season. Araneta was jampacked with fans from both schools. That meant that it was filled with fair-weathered fans, thus the Ateneo gallery was not that noisy enough for me. Furthermore, it was the very same time that Gang Green displayed its THES banner with the ‘Nuf Said! La Salle greater than Ateneo in academics??? Seriously?! (OK, some of my Lasallian friends will be shooting arrows at me tomorrow) But if you were to ask me, even if the survey was a bit flawed due to some statistics having bigger weight than the others, the damage was done then. Much has been said on the THES thingie and you can search on other related blogs (Sir Aly’s blog: http://alikishi.multiply.com/journal/item/35/Things_that_should_be_cleared). FYI, guess who is out of the top 500 now. ‘Nuff said!

4. FEU sweeps the Ateneo in the Finals of the 2003 season. Not only were we swept then but we were dominated. The overwhelming cast of Rich Alvarez, Larry Fonacier, Wesley Gonzales, and LA Tenorio succumbed to Arwind Santos’ team. Most people were already predicting Ateneo to bounce back and still grab the title in Game 3 but no, it never happened. FEU just proved to be the better team. It just felt sad then that the Ateneo Blue Eagles could not find a way to inch closer. Only Larry Fonacier seemed to play with heart as he buried successive three-point shots. The game ended with him fighting back his tears as he was consoled by his ex-coach Joe Lipa. Some may claim that the bad scheduling contributed to the loss of the Blue Eagles but a loss is still a loss. No excuses on this one.

3. La Salle beats Ateneo twice in the Final Four of 2004. It was the year when Larry had the ACL injury. Undermanned or not, we still lost to La Salle. It was a best-of-three Final Four series (both Ateneo and La Salle were tied at 2nd and 3rd) but the Green Archers just made it clear that they were the better team by beating the Blue Eagles with large leads.

2. Ateneo chokes to UST in 2006 Finals. I can still remember the feeling I had when Ateneo was leading some time in the final two minutes in that game. That feeling of ‘so near, yet so far.’ It was very opposite to what I felt in Game 3 of the 2002 Finals. The championship dreams disappeared that moment, and lo and behold! The Blue Eagles choked big time in the dying seconds of regulation. The squad that was poised to get the championship had their dreams shattered by a young Jervy Cruz-led squad. UST, just like each of the teams that beat Ateneo in the past years, peaked at the right time. The game ended with the yellow crowd erupting with joys and me staring at utter disbelief. It felt extra bad because Ateneo was trying to battle for it each year and now that the golden moment of opportunity arrived, UST stole the limelight. Yes, that is the kind of thing that would make JC Intal cry.

1. La Salle convincingly sweeps Ateneo in 2005. Forget the fact that they fielded ineligible players. What we are talking in here is the actual game itself. Ateneo was led by LA Tenorio this year and the rest of the squad was still green (no pun intended). Even the trio JC Intal, Macky Escalona, and Doug Kramer was not yet even considered a legitimate threat then. Nonetheless, we made it to the Final Four. I considered this the ultimate buzzkill of all the Ateneo games I watched because ever since I started watching UAAP, a) La Salle never swept Ateneo and b) that was my final year in college. I knew that we had a weaker team then but I expected them to win at least once for school pride’s sake. But, what did we get? Another blown-out game by La Salle. The Green Archers were even successful in adding insult to injury when Joseph Yeo and his gang posed in the middle of the court for a ‘picture taking’ as LA Tenorio sat in the benches with his terrible cramps.

This list could have been ten but it was not that easy to remember the bad memories. It was even a painful task to rank which of them made me feel worse. I am actually preparing to release this blog entry after an Ateneo loss in the current UAAP Men’s Basketball Tournament but I just cannot wait.

Buzzkill. Buzzkill. Buzzkill. You just cannot live without them. For every joyous moment, you have that depressing moment. Sometimes, the best you could do is suck it up and fight back. But since the buzzkill moments that I featured in here were moments of elimination, I just cannot fight back from that… OK, I just buzzkilled this paragraph as it reaches its supposed climax.

But from these bad moments, it is where we start to learn. It is where we start to realize the value of what we are fighting for. It would not be sweet to win if you just become the champions year in and year out. Frankly, I felt school spirit the most when I was one of the few wasting his saliva when the Ateneo Blue Eagles were getting beat out by La Salle Green Archers in 2005. I did not even care if it was a lose-lose situation – all that mattered then was we fought. That in itself, is the personal victory. Win or lose, it’s the school we choose.

So much for gratifying myself… I could not even look at the players when we were singing the Alma Mater hymn then because I had the feeling that they had no ‘heart’.

Nice one, Jeff! You just buzzkilled yourself again.

Bottomline: Buzzkills suck. The lesson you learn from it is that buzzkills leave a sour taste that you would not want to let these to happen again. Ever.

Parallelisms of the 2002 Team and this Year’s Team
My intention to put this here is to put some hope on this depressing column. I do not want to jinx the team but I just want to point some important and trivial similarities.

• Both teams have strong starters and bench guys. To think of it, the roles filled are similar (not of equal talent though).
Enrico Villanueva – Rabeh Al-Hussaini. Both are big guys who can dominate the paint.
Rich Alvarez – Nonoy Baclaro. Both are athletic power forwards who are strong defensively.
Wesley Gonzales – Ryan Buenafe. Both are great slashers with some good touch from the outside.
Larry Fonacier – Chris Tiu. Clutch three-point shooters and are good in breaking the vaunted press of La Salle.
Epok Quimpo – Yuri Escueta. Veteran point guards who give quality time in playmaking and some shooting.
LA Tenorio – Kirk Long. Both had decent rookie seasons but they were not that good in their sophomore years.
Sonny Tadeo – Jobe Nkemakolam. Both veteran big guys who give a good spark off the bench.
Andrew Cruz – Eric Salamat. Sixth Men. Both are good in slashing.

• Both teams came from a season where La Salle were the champions.
• Both teams were in a league that is brimming with talent.
• For both teams, the next host school is Ateneo.
• Both teams had players that were champions in a recent summer league.

Will this year’s team be champions as well? I do not know. With the way they are winning lately, it seemed that they are not peaking at the right time. But then, the expected talent from everyone, overhyped or not, is not yet near to its maximum potential so I cannot really say that this 4-0 lead is already at the peak level. I just hope that they learn from the lessons of the past. La Salle has already learned after its 90s bridesmaid years. Here is to hoping that the Blue Eagles do not add another entry of buzzkills by the end of the season.

Go Ateneo! One Big Fight! Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

I Don’t Hate the Greenies Anymore
Not La Salle. It is the Boston Celtics. To think of it, I should not be hating them that much considering that they had two of my well-liked players back in high school – Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. They were not the San Antonio Spurs anyway. I would have to note that I root for the Boston Red Sox when it comes to Major League Baseball. They deserved the NBA title by winning it characteristically. Boston ain’t that bad.

But what made me soften my somewhat hard feelings on them was when they congratulated Manny Pacquiao in his latest triumph. It was such a heartwarming incident that I cannot help but smile. So there you go, congratulations to the 2008 NBA champions – the Boston Celtics!

By the way, the sports column of Celtic-diehard Bill Simmons of ESPN inspired me to write these college basketball-related journal entries.