Right after hearing the news that Men’s Basketball national team head coach Tab Baldwin had been appointed as the 37th head coach of Ateneo’s Men’s basketball team, Ravena expressed that the next batch of Blue Eagles are fortunate to be under the tutelage of Baldwin. “Suwerte talaga yung mga bata,” he said.
Ravena, with his experience under coach Baldwin in the Southeast Asian Games and with the Gilas 4.0 pool, believes that Baldwin is the perfect coach for the upstart Blue Eagles. “I think coach Tab is the right guy for the job. Very fortunate for the kids because they will learn a lot. Marami kasi matututunan yung mga bata,” he said.
The two-time UAAP men’s basketball Most Valuable Player, who had gone on to average a stellar 16.3 points, 5.2 boards, and 3.9 assists in his collegiate career, has no regrets that he will not have the opportunity to be under the guidance of Baldwin while donning the Ateneo blue-and-white. “Ganun talaga. I already paid my dues. I played for the Ateneo for five years and suwerte din ako that I played for coach Norman [Black] and coach Bo [Perasol]. They gave me a lot of opportunities to grow in my career.”
“Coach Tab is one great coach with all of his accomplishments and achievements and how he is handling the national team. Suwerte talaga yung mga bata,” he reiterated.
However, Ravena added that the practices and drills of Coach Tab are legendary, to say the least. It has been documented that Baldwin’s practices have been known to be tedious even for the professional players from the PBA. “I’ll tell the players to be ready for the practices as I’ve been under coach Tab before,” the Smart Elite ambassador shared. “He’s a professional and he’ll want to win the championship even more next year for Ateneo.”
Baldwin has shared that he was surprised that he had been chosen to coach the Blue Eagles in a separate interview. For the dynamic scorer, Baldwin will easily adjust to the UAAP and collegiate basketball in saying, “iba kasi si coach Tab. He is a very intellectual coach.”
“I’m not going to be surprised if he adjusts quickly to the collegiate type of basketball. Time itself will tell what is going to happen to Ateneo.”
Moreover, Ravena expressed that the Ateneo community should temper their expectations for the team’s UAAP Season 79 campaign, emphasizing that this is still a process in the works. “I mean people should learn to be patient. It’s still a process,” he told Tiebreaker Times. “It’s not just a one hit type of knockout thing. They can expect but the team is still young.”
To close out our interview, Ravena quipped that he needs to give Coach Baldwin a crash course in the Ateneo culture. “That’s a good idea. Maybe, I need to give coach Tab an INTAC (Introduction to the Ateneo Culture) class.”
