It’s-a-me, Mario! Welcome back! Yesterday, we-a-talked about the UST Growling Tigers’ Season 69 championship. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the link: https://mariofromnintendo.blogspot.com/2023/02/uaap-retrospective-ust-growling-tigers.html
Anyway, today’s retrospective is about the UP Fighting Maroons from 2007, the start of their dark ages, to 2018, where they-a-made it to the finals after years of failure. Let’s-a-go!
Welcome-a-to my time machine. Let’s-a-start in 2007. UP got zero wins!
After that, they continued to lose. They did defeat the Ateneo Blue Eagles and De La Salle Green Archers in Season 72, but that didn’t bring them to the Final Four. Season 77 marked the end of a losing streak with a win against the Adamson Soaring Falcons, but that too wasn’t enough.
But in Season 80, they made it to the Final Four… almost. A loss against UE and an FEU win on a later day made them miss it. Luigi calls it an embarrasment to the fans.
But in Season 81, they actually started winning now that they had good players like Paul Desiderio, Bright Akhuetie, and Juan & Javi Gomez de Liano.
Princess Peach, Luigi, and I were in attendance in the three Final Four games. One Ateneo vs FEU game, and two UP vs Adamson games. Game 1 of UP vs Adamson was a thriller. I was on the Adamson side (section 101), but there were many UP fans beside me. Putting the fans aside though, let’s-a-talk about the game. UP won 73-71 with a Bright Akhuetie game winner.
After Game 1, we thought no non-finals game could be better. But Game 2 was. I was on the UP side this time, and the 4th quarter was crazy. A three-pointer by Jerom Lastimosa and a miss by Paul Desiderio helped Adamson force OT. But in OT, UP won 89-87. We took a photo with the coaches, Bo Perasol and Franz Pumaren. We tried talking to them, but before we could, the police found us, and we rushed to the parking lot. Phew. Hahaha.
But in the Finals, Ateneo was seen as a very tough opponent. Game 1 was kinda close, but Game 2 was a different story. And so they swept the series.
Thank you for reading! If you have a suggestion for a new article, please let me know.