For the better part of the decade, the San Beda College Red Lions have lorded over the NCAA, winning nine Seniors Basketball championships in 11 years. And in all those years, San Beda entered the post-season as the top seed.
That all changed on Thursday afternoon, as for the first time since 2006, San Beda will be the second seed after falling to the Lyceum Pirates for the second time this season, 105-107, in double overtime. Moreover, making matters worse is that San Beda will figure in a do-or-die game in order to advance to the Finals.
Still, Boyet Fernandez — who returned to San Beda this season after two years with the NLEX Road Warriors — was proud of how his players had gutted it out with the league-leaders for 50 minutes.
“I’m so proud of my boys. We could have won that game but we didn’t finish it,” shared Fernandez, “I just told the players that, ‘Hey, even [though] we lost this game we still have another chance of getting into the finals. We haven’t lost anything. We just lost twice-to-beat advantage. We’re just on a bye, and waiting for a knockout match whoever wins between JRU and the other teams.’
“Pinahirapan lang namin yung sarili namin but at least we showed that we can keep up with Lyceum.”
But Fernandez had expected their current position, as according to him, he already foresaw that this year’s field is competitive.
“Well, I never considered San Beda naman as the top team [this year]. All I say is it’s the talent already in the NCAA has balanced. As what I’ve always said, teams have improved,” he added.
San Beda will enter the semis with a one-week layoff. And Fernandez will start off the Red Lions’ prep for the post-season by instilling a specific mindset to his players.
“We’ll learn from this and we’ll be ready. But as what I told the boys, let’s look forward to the semifinals first. Let’s not look at the Finals because if we lose that game, we will never make it into the Finals,” he said.
“So let’s focus on what the job at hand which is win in the semifinals.”
