IT all comes down to this.
With the last Final Four spot in UAAP Season 86 men's basketball on the line, reigning champ Ateneo looks to deliver its biggest fight yet and save its title defense against a willful and impassioned Adamson side.
The Eagles and Falcons had a dramatic split, to say the least, of their season series — with the latter taking Round 1 through a last-gasp extra time game-winner, and the former scoring a vengeful second-round clapback.
Notwithstanding the 'cold war' between two esteemed tacticians in Ateneo's Tab Baldwin and Adamson's Nash Racela, all chatter and naysays go down the drain come Wednesday in what will surely be a heated playoff for the No. 4 seed.
'One big fight,' now more than ever
A champion's heart won't simply fade away.
For Ateneo, albeit far from perfect and under completely different circumstances than in recent years, Baldwin's wards continue to find ways to show traces of the team's championship DNA.
READ: Tab Baldwin expects youth-laden Ateneo side to peak - next season
They were once described by their multi-titled coach as champions of nothing upon tempering their own title hopes even before the season started.
But young as they are amid a rocky learning curve, this current breed of Blue Eagles now find themselves in a position to prove that they can play beyond their years with such character and composure that lie at the core of Ateneo's longstanding culture of winning.
"Sometimes, you’re playing checkers and you wanna be playing chess cause your players just don’t have the experience. But they’re getting that and we’re learning," said Baldwin.
"I just hope we get in (to the Final Four) — that’s the biggest thing (...) but you know, we’ll see. We’ll see how it plays out. Adamson is really tough. They’re one of the tough teams to contend with. We’ll see how the game goes," he added.
Soaring past its biggest storm
Running quite a similar thread to their Katipunan counterparts, it hasn't been a season of dreams for the Falcons by any stretch of the imagination thus far.
But with one more win, it might just be.
READ: In a stormy season, Adamson Falcons simply refuse to go away quietly
From losing its graduating senior Jerom Lastimosa to a full anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear to Racela's bombshell rant on league officiating and statistical disparities, Adamson had quite an eventful home stretch to the elimination round.
And as it all boils down to one decisive playoff — just as it was in Season 85 when Adamson toppled La Salle — Racela preaches two important things for his Final Four-hungry Falcons — 'do your part' and 'keep emotions in check.'
"I always say the chance that you have on Wednesday should be enough motivation because you’re playing a knockout game. Wala na dapat ibang nagsasalita pa sa’yo," Racela told SPIN.ph.
"When you play a knockout game, ‘pag mataas ang emosyon mo, you’ll be out of control. We’ll probably talk about that again in the next two days para mag-settle down ang team before the actual game (versus Ateneo)."
Adamson and Ateneo will run it back one last time in the Season 86 fourth-seed playoff on Wednesday, 2 p.m. at the Mall of Asia Arena for the right to face top-seed University of the Philippines in the Final Four come Saturday.
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