It’s been a while since the last Armchair piece – mainly because our senior editor Neal Tieng together with our other Reknet team members Alexandria Tiu-Sonco, Anthony Castro, Francis Tiu-Sonco, Franco Rimando, Jojo Hipolito, Mark Tansiongkun, and Theo Kalalo have been doing such an amazing job in covering the games with the writeups, photos and videos, social media, as well as providing an in-depth analysis.
Reknet Team, take a bow for a job well done!
But with the finals up tomorrow, I’ll put in my two centavos’ worth (though good luck buying anything with that!).
The journey, with its ups and downs
Almost immediately after Season 86 ended, the Green Archers marked that episode as closed, and embarked on an ambitious mission to grab that rare back-to-back by joining various offseason tournaments with mixed results.
PBA D-League
In March, DLSU joined the 6-team PBA D-League participated in the PBA D-League together with CEU, Marinerong Pilipino (San Beda), Go Torakku (St. Clair), Yengskivel (CCI/Cornerstone College), and Keanzel Basketball.
The Green Archers breezed through the competition, winning their first 2024 offseason tournament by emerging unscathed in the 9 games they played. Game results and links to the game write-up on the PBA website:
|
Stage |
Date |
Game Result / click to view game writeup on PBA website |
|
E |
14-Mar |
DLSU def. CCI-Yengskivel, 110-68 (29-16, 59-31, 93-54, 110-68) |
|
E |
18-Mar |
|
|
E |
2-Apr |
|
|
E |
11-Apr |
|
|
E |
18-Apr |
|
|
SF |
25-Apr |
|
|
SF |
30-Apr |
|
|
F |
6-May |
|
|
F |
9-May |
Filoil EcoOil Preseason Cup
Right after the PBA D-League ended, the Green Archers jumped into the Filoil EcoOil Preseason Cup, with participation from 10 NCAA teams and all 8 UAAP teams divided into NCAA and UAAP brackets, ensuring that at least 2 teams from each league would make the playoffs. The Archers lost to UP and NU in the elimination stage, but still finished 2nd in the UAAP bracket.
They hurdled the challenge of the NCAA teams San Beda and Letran before falling to UP in the title match. The loss in the finals was a repeat of the 2023 result in the Filoil Cup, and was viewed by UP as payback for their UAAP failed repeat ambitions in S86.
If you want to watch the Filoil games, below are the game results and links to the game videos on the Filoil FB page:
|
Stage |
Date |
Game Result / click to view game writeup on PBA website |
|
E |
14-Mar |
DLSU def. CCI-Yengskivel, 110-68 (29-16, 59-31, 93-54, 110-68) |
|
E |
18-Mar |
|
|
E |
2-Apr |
|
|
E |
11-Apr |
|
|
E |
18-Apr |
|
|
SF |
25-Apr |
|
|
SF |
30-Apr |
|
|
F |
6-May |
|
|
F |
9-May |
2024 Kadayawan Invitational Basketball Tournament
To further gain experience against tougher and bigger opponents, the Green Archers joined the 2024 edition of the Kadayawan Invitational Tournament which featured 3 PBA teams. Surprisingly, the Archers lost a game but defeated two PBA teams to get to the finals, where they lost to Rain or Shine anew. If you want to watch the Kadayawan games, below are the game results and links to the game videos on the Filoil FB page.
|
Date |
Game Result / Click to Watch Game on Kadayawan FB Page |
|
25-Jul |
Rain or Shine def. DLSU, 106-105 (31-20, 51-55, 78-82, 106-105) |
|
25-Jul |
|
|
27-Jul |
|
|
28-Jul |
Rain or Shine def. DLSU, 138-116 (42-33, 77-59, 110-94, 138-116) |
In August 2024, the Green Archers participated in the 2024 World University Basketball Series in Tokyo, Japan, where they beat swept college Perbanas Institute (Indonesia), defending titleholders National Chengchi University (Chinese Taipei) before swamping Korea University (Korea) in the title match 101-86.
The road to the UAAP finals
The Archers were dominant in the elimination rounds and topped the standings, becoming the only team to beat all of the opponents at least once:
The Archers finished at the top of the standings with a 12-2 record, followed by UP at 11-3, UST at 7-7, and Adamson at 6-8 after Adamson beat UE (also 6-8) in their playoff for the 4th spot.
In the final 4 playoffs, as expected, the top 2 placers with a twice-to-beat advantage advanced to the finals, with UP prevailing over UST 79-68 and the Green Archers easily defeating Adamson 70-55.
The repeat of last year’s best-of-3 finals was in place.
Focusing on the people aside from basketball
The keys to the season hinged not only on the technical aspect of basketball such as the Xs and Os – all teams already concentrate on that area, and that’s a given. Rather, it was the qualitative, people aspects that are important in most organizations that aspire to be successful that the coaches worked on.
Never one to rest on his accomplishments, Coach Topex, together with his staff, set in place the foundation for his people in Season 87 anchored on just a couple of basic tenets: togetherness and learning.
Togetherness, or truly being a team
Togetherness meant everyone on the team truly felt that he was an integral part of the team, no matter what his role was. The all-inclusive approach included the coaching and support staff, and of course all the players on the team, whether they would be included in the final lineup or not. Everyone was important and had a role to play. Everyone was afforded a chance to contribute, and no effort was too big or too small. Everyone was a key piece needed to complete the puzzle.
The bond in the team would be summarized in just one phrase: Everyone has each other’s back, no matter what happened. No finger-pointing, no recriminations for any miscues. The team would win as one, and lose as one.
Learning
While a sweep of the preliminary rounds would’ve been nice, the coaches had stressed the need for the team to keep learning, even if it meant making mistakes. And they gave the players a lot of opportunities for learning; unsaid but equally as important was for the coaches to learn how the team responds to certain situations, what combinations might click, and what players are capable of.
It might sound counter-intuitive, but everyone was given a chance to make mistakes. It’s been said that one learns more from failure than from success, and a quote attributed to the great Albert Einstein summed it up best: “Failure is success in progress”.
And so they proceeded to win most games, but most likely learned more from the losses they suffered against lower-ranked teams UE in the first round, and NU in the second.
One indicator of the learning was that they rebounded from those losses to swamp their next opponents in the game following the loss. And when a game got tight, they were able to rebound well, as seen in the come-from-behind win over UST that went into overtime.
The Archers finished at the top of the standings with a 12-2 record, followed by UP at 11-3, UST at 7-7, and Adamson at 6-8 after Adamson beat UE (also 6-8) in their playoff for the 4th spot.
In the final 4 playoffs, as expected, the top 2 placers with a twice-to-beat advantage advanced to the finals, with UP prevailing over UST 79-68 and the Green Archers easily defeating Adamson 70-55.
Will the finals be a rerun of Season 86?
Let’s see how they put all that togetherness and learning to good use in the finals which starts this weekend.
ANIMO!
Thanks to teampilipinas.info for the results and links.
