After the Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles were handed an opening day loss at the hands of the Adamson Soaring Falcons last Sunday, decorated tactician Tab Baldwin did not panic. As calm as one could be, the Kiwi mentor politely answered the questions from the press.
“Of course, you guys think there’s asteroids falling outside and the world is ending. We don’t.
“We’re gonna look ourselves closely in the video. We talk all the time that results don’t matter to us and now we have to live up to that,” Baldwin shared.
This video viewing was not to dissect the entire game. Instead, he used it as a mirror for the Blue Eagles.
“I asked the team after the other game, who are we? Is that who we want to be? Because that’s not who we prepared to be.”
The Blue Eagles had gone through a gauntlet last summer. They held a camp in Greece and played in every summer league out there. The defending champions then capped their campaign with a stint in the pro-laden William Jones Cup.
As the gold standard among collegiate teams, the Blue Eagles have a huge target on their backs. Everybody wants to beat them.
And for the last two games, the Blue Eagles had to fight for their lives.
“The biggest takeaway was we abandoned who we were. Adamson had a lot to do with that. We have to learn to stick to who we are, irrespective of the pressure. We’re gonna get pressured from anybody,” Baldwin opined.
“I think that’s the next challenge to this team, to turn no matter what the conditions are, no matter who we play, to turn our practice effort into game performance. I think that was the takeaway we had. “
Even after Ateneo defeated the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons four days after their opening day loss, Baldwin still asked the Blue Eagles: Who are we?
“If the answer we give is like the one we gave last week, all of you people will label us as losers. Rightfully so. When we give an answer like we gave today, we have a good chance of you people to label us as winners,” the former Gilas Pilipinas mentor said.
“Doesn’t matter to me what you label us, what matters to me is how these guys actually play. But that take away is, ‘Who are we?'”
