Some from the San Beda College community had been hard on head coach Jamike Jarin for picking hefty Cameroonian Arnaud Noah over Nigerian Eugene Toba as the second foreign-student athlete for this batch of Red Lions.
And who could blame them? In the game of basketball: height is might.
The 22-year-old Noah stands at 6’2″ compared to 6’9″ for Toba. Moreover, Noah’s game is more perimeter-oriented, while Toba is an explosive big.
“To be honest the reason why I got Noah is because I really wanted him to play that different positions, the four, the three, or even the two,” Jarin reflected.
Choosing Noah was a risk for the 47-year-old mentor, but he felt that it was the right choice since he had the services of Donald Tankoua to start the season.
“Gut feel, and I felt that he was more ready for the competition than the other one. That was my gut feel,” the mentor added.
“But if I knew Donald will go down, I would have gotten… I don’t know.”
“I saw my friend (Tankoua) really down because of an ACL injury and he cannot play anymore. I looked at us and I knew few people can make up for that stats so we really worked together to make up for it. I just stepped up,” Noah shared.
And after struggling for almost the entire season, he stepped up in the biggest of moments.
The Cameroonian helped San Beda keep pace with Arellano during their furious third quarter rally scoring seven points. In the clutch, Noah made Jarin look like a genius as he played the role of facilitator. He was able to dish out two crucial assists, finding AC Soberano and Davon Potts for back-to-back triples that gave San Beda a 78-71 with 1:48 remaining.
The much-maligned pick has helped give San Beda their 20th overall crown. And with his herculean finals performance, he shattered any doubt still lingering in the minds of some of San Beda’s alumni.
“After the loss of Donald, I thought I should really step up and do my best on both offense and defense and I got my MVP title,” said Noah, who was crowned as the Finals MVP after posting norms of 16 points and 9 rebounds.
But instead of basking in all the glory, Noah stayed true and humble, deflecting all the credit to his mentor’s system and his teammates.
“It was really hard for me to get into the system and the play of my coach but my teammates, they really helped me,” the NCAA Season 92 Seniors Basketball Most Valuable Player pointed out proudly.
