It was déjà vu for San Miguel on Sunday night, as it saw its Grand Slam dreams crushed by the very same team that foiled its bid of winning a rare Triple Crown a couple of years ago.
The Beermen’s hopes of achieving the historic feat remain elusive following the stinging 97-100 defeat to Justin Brownlee and Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.
It was like 2017 all over again. Back then, in that year’s edition of the season-ending tilt, expectations were high for SMB to snag a Grand Slam. Unfortunately, the Gin Kings booted them out in the quarters.
“We came up short again sa second try namin. Nothing happened again,” lamented coach Leo Austria after the sorry loss.
“Painful for us, especially you want to achieve something.”
Hopes were definitely high for this current batch of Beermen to snag the Grand Slam this season following impressive championship runs in the Philippine and Commissioner’s Cups.
And things seemed to be going well for them early in the Governors’ Cup, opening the meet with four straight victories. After that, however, things started to fall apart for the storied franchise.
Losses began coming, while Dez Wells suffered an injury during their match with the Meralco Bolts last October. The import stability they thought they had with the G-League vet suddenly came under question.
San Miguel then brought in John Holland while Wells was hurt. But his arrival coincided with rumors and reports that Wells didn’t have a good relationship with some of the team’s locals.
And days prior to their last eliminations game versus TNT, a fight broke out during practice, leading to the indefinite suspension of Wells, Arwind Santos, Kelly Nabong, and Ronald Tubid.
San Miguel lost to the KaTropa narrowly — a stinging loss, since it brought the Beermen down to the fifth seed. It also put them at a twice-to-beat disadvantage versus the crowd darlings.
Now, the Beermen could only think of what went wrong as another bid failed. Still, Austria says that it has been one successful season for them after winning two of three titles, and that he remains proud.
“We’re the best team in the last five years because we won eight championships and in this season, two out of three. We don’t know yet kung sino magcha-champion now but kami, nananalo kami ng dalawa,” he said.
“Nothing to be ashamed of. I’m still very proud of our team in spite of those issues and adversities that came along the way. It’s not smooth sailing, but maybe this is the price of the success.
“If you’re on top, everybody wants to pull you down. And that’s what’s happening, that’s the competition eh,” he said.
Moving forward, Austria hopes that what happened this season could help San Miguel in the future.
“I hope these things that happened to us, along the way, could help us in the future,” he said. “This is not the end of the world. We still have a lot of chances. It’s up to us. Maybe next time.
“I don’t know what will happen. Maybe we will have a chance. But next conference, I think we have a chance to defend the (All-Filipino) title and to win the six-peat, which never happened,” he continued.
“Right now, we have to reflect and to plan how to get this elusive title, which is Grand Slam.”
