For the first time in his three-year tenure at the helm of the FEU men’s basketball program, Sean Chambers is seeing the Tamaraws reap the rewards of a fast start.
After opening the UAAP Season 89 campaign with a loss to Adamson University, FEU has responded with back-to-back victories. And the latest came in emphatic fashion against defending champion De La Salle University.
The Tamaraws led by as many as 19 points and never allowed La Salle to mount a serious comeback, cruising to a 90-78 win on Wednesday at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
More than just another win, the result gave Chambers a feeling he had rarely experienced during his first two seasons with FEU.
“I’m happy that we’re there. Clearly, my first year we were 0-5, and then my next year we were 0-3 before we won our first game. So it does feel good to be on this side of the table for my third year,” Chambers said.
Chambers and his boys had gone 0-3 against La Salle under his tutelage before finally getting over the hump in the second round of UAAP Season 88, when FEU escaped with a one-point victory.
Late-season surges have typically defined Chambers’ tenure with the Tamaraws. This early run, then, is something the veteran coach is embracing while making sure his team does not get carried away.
“We’re gonna take this win, and we’ll be excited for it today. But then tomorrow, we’re gonna have to be mature and move on to the next one,” he shared.
(C) UAAP Season 89 Media Team
Despite FEU’s convincing victory over the reigning champions, Chambers was quick to remind his players that beating one contender does not automatically make them contenders themselves.
To explain where he believes the Tamaraws currently stand, the 61-year-old tactician looked back on his playing days with Alaska.
Chambers spent 12 seasons as the Milkmen’s resident import from 1989 to 2001, eventually becoming a six-time PBA champion and one of the league’s most accomplished imports.
But before Alaska became one of the PBA’s dominant teams in the 1990s, Chambers recalled, the Milkmen first had to prove themselves against the league’s best.
“Once we started, as Alaska, beating San Miguel, that’s when we knew we had arrived,” the six-time PBA champion said.
Chambers won his first title with Alaska in the 1991 Third Conference after defeating the Robert Jaworski-led Ginebra San Miguel. Before that championship run, the Milkmen had already gone up against some of the league’s biggest names, including Ato Agustin’s San Miguel, Allan Caidic’s Tivoli and Eric Altamirano’s Pepsi.
Three decades later, Chambers sees a similar test awaiting his Tamaraws.
For FEU to establish itself among the UAAP’s legitimate contenders, he knows wins over the league’s perennial powers have to become the norm — not the exception.
“So until we start beating La Salle, UP, and NU, then we’re gonna know that we actually are one of the contenders,” he added.
“We have to take this game, enjoy it. But we gotta move on, ‘cause you got UP next, then Ateneo. It’s never an easy day here.”
The Tamaraws will get their next opportunity to prove themselves when they face perennial contender and UAAP Season 88 finalist University of the Philippines on Sunday, Oct. 4.
