For 13 minutes Sunday afternoon, Cebuanos Ron Dennison of the FEU Tamaraws and Paul Desiderio of the UP Fighting Maroons were tasked to guard one another. However, with 2:48 minutes remaining in the game, the two guards figured in one of the most perplexing calls of the season so far.
Desiderio tried fighting off the stingy defense of FEU’s defensive specialist but to no avail. As he tried to run through it, the 19 year old Fighting Maroons suddenly crumbled to the floor. This resulted to the disqualification of the game of Dennison and helped UP tie the game at 47-all.
Dennison gets thrown out for his shot on Desiderio ? ?#UAAPSeason79 pic.twitter.com/2baJ2mjfFV
— ABS-CBN Sports (@abscbnsports) September 25, 2016
For the third year Maroon, he knows how physical his former captain ball in the University of Visayas played and shared that their intensity on the court is different from their relationship off of it.
“Wala, teammate ko before, captain ball ko si Dennison. Sports lang. Sa UV. Best friend ko yan so sports lang. Kasi sabi ko, bibigyan namin ng good fight,” Desiderio, who finished the game with a team-high 15 points, said.
“Ang nangyari, good fight nga.”
“Pisikal lang talaga si Dennison. Ganyan lang talaga yan, nasanay na ako,” he remarked about Dennison. “May mga ano lang siya na extra.”
“Pero walang problema sakin yun, teammate ko pa rin yun.”
The former Batang Gilas standout though is alleging that he was hurt from the said incident, saying that it was not a flop on his part.
“Natamaan talaga ako. Ang sakit ng tiyan ko e. Dito ako natamaan,” Desiderio, who was pointing to his solar plexus, said.
But he reiterated that it was all just part of the physicality of the game.
“Pero okay lang yun kasi nirerespeto ko si Dennison kasi captain ball ko siya back in UV. Parang kapatid ko na,” he added.
However, the one thing Desiderio lamented was the result of the game. Again the battle-tested FEU Tamaraws schooled another squad, as the Fighting Maroons panicked leading to its fourth loss of the tournament.
UP’s leading scorer took full responsility for the Fighting Maroon’s loss.
“Sa akin yun, sa akin. Last two minutes, nawala ako sa game,” Desiderio, who shot just 3-of-13 from the field, said. “Sorry, sorry. Yung leadership, nawala ko nung last two minutes.”
