NU Bulldogs, Donaire & Pacquiao

By Al S. Mendoza

 

NATIONAL University (NU) is finally a UAAP men’s basketball champ again but will Nonito Donaire Jr. become the undisputed world featherweight king by the end of the day?

By scoring a convincing 75-59 victory over Far Eastern University on Wednesday, NU ended a six- decade drought as the Bulldogs clinched a 2-1 victory over the Tamaraws in their best-of-three affair.

I think NU’s wait to repeat its 1954 UAAP triumph could be the longest ever in basketball history, longer than the wait University of the Philippines had experienced before it won its first – and only — UAAP crown in 1986 since the league’s birth in 1937.

To get to the championship picture, the Bulldogs needed three straight wins – and they got the job done.

NU survived University of the East in the knockout for the fourth and final slot in the UAAP Final 4.

Then pitted against elimination topnotcher Ateneo, NU must win twice to barge into the Finals.

It did, the Bulldogs bullying their way into the title clash with the Tamaraws with big help from Alfred Aroga, the 6-foot-7 Cameroonian.

Aroga blocked an overtime-sending layup by Kiefer Ravena, the King Eagle and the season MVP, at the buzzer to save NU’s two-point winning margin.

Aroga would shine again in the title playoffs, firing 24 points and grabbing 18 rebounds in the crown-clinching Game Three to earn the Finals MVP.

NU’s climb to the top was nothing but flawlessly phenomenal, achieving the near-impossible of pocketing five of the six knockout matches it faced to win the UAAP plum that was first staked 77 years ago.

And while the victory was literally a team effort by NU coach Eric Altamirano and his boys, the biggest credit goes to Hans Sy, the Prime Holdings chair that controls NU.

Hans, son of the billionaire Henry Sy who owns the SM Mall chain nationwide, initiated the acquisition of NU in 2008.

In only six years, NU is not only the UAAP men’s basketball champion but also the league’s women’s basketball titlist and is likewise the winner of the hotly-contested Cheerleading Competition dominated for many seasons by University of the Philippines.

Money makes miracles, indeed, as proven by SM’s robust financial backing of NU’s sports program, which is anchored on massive scouring of talents in the countryside.

The lure of more money is what also drives Donaire to defeat today Jamaican Nicholas Walters, the reigning welterweight champ gunning for Donaire’s super featherweight belt.

The 33-2 Donaire, also busy raising a family (he has a son now), is up against the 24-0 Walters, who is definitely dangerous as 20 of his victims lost by knockout.

But still, I believe Donaire will win and I’ll go further by saying it will be by knockout.

I hope Manny Pacquiao watches the fight – and learn a trick or two on how Donaire would dispose of his foe with clinical precision.

Never mind that Pacquiao debuts today as player-coach of Kia Sorento in the PBA Season 40.

If he makes true his threat that Pacquiao will play today for “even only two minutes,” will you care?

I care.  He has a fight on Nov. 23 in Macau, thus unnecessarily taking a risk each time he holds that Kia ball.

So, quit the crap, please, Mr. PacMan?

Just coach.

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