When College of Saint Benilde defeated Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Game Two of the NCAA Season 98 Seniors Basketball Finals, it was the first time the Blazers had beaten the Knights in three games.
Despite packing one of the best Benilde lineups in recent memory, Will Gozum and the Blazers can’t seem to overcome the Knights prior to Game Two.
In their first-round encounter, CSB fell to Letran, 80-75.
Round Two saw the Blazers bow to the Knights, 74-66.
Game One of the Finals two Sundays ago once again had Letran stand tall, taking an 81-75 victory to draw first blood in the best-of-three finals.
Blazers head coach Charles Tiu knows that they only need two wins to win the championship.
And he is hoping that he can replicate what his good pal TY Tang did to his brother Chris 15 years ago.
“We talked about it all week long because we have to believe. I even told them that I remember one year, 2007, Ateneo versus La Salle and syempre Ateneo ako no’n cheering for my brother. La Salle fans were always saying that two is better than three. La Salle beat Ateneo twice only but they won the championship that year,” recalled Tiu, who was just a freshman in Ateneo back then.
“So that’s my mantra for this team, they can beat us three times but it’s these last two games that matter.”
Back in UAAP Season 70, De La Salle University was coming off a suspension.
On top of the table was University of the East who completed a 14-game elimination round sweep to automatically punch one of the two Finals tickets.
Meanwhile, Ateneo, who defeated La Salle twice in the elimination round by an average of 11.5 points, was knotted with La Salle for the second spot setting up a playoff for second seed.
La Salle took the second seed after beating Ateneo, 70-69, and gain the twice-to-beat semis advantage.
After the Blue Eagles defeated University of Santo Tomas in the second stage of the stepladder, they eked out a 65-64 win over the Green Archers to force sudden death.
In the knockout match, it was Tang and La Salle who punched the last bus ride to the finale after a 65-60 win over Chris’ Ateneo.
Tang and La Salle went on to stun the top-seeded Red Warriors to capture the championship.
Though it’s a painful memory for his brother, Charles hopes that the other green and white squad can do the same magic, this time against the Knights.
“We just try to believe, really, that we can compete with this team. We talked about having to match their physicality, that we can’t let them bully us there,” he said.
“And I’m happy with the way they responded for most of part of this game.”
