CHICAGO - With a slew of future pros on each side, this UAAP Season 88 Finals between UP and La Salle has no shortage of offensive firepower.
We relished that in Game One where Harold Alarcon led the Fighting Maroons with 34 points while Jacob Cortez countered with 21 to carry the Green Archers to a 74-70 victory.
READ UP calls on its own Jacob to silence La Salle's 'Clutch Cat'
In Sunday's Game Two at the MOA Arena, the series took a different turn that echoed a time-tested mantra.
Defense wins championships.
Facing elimination, UP unleashed a simplistic but effective 2-3 zone that collapsed into a man-to-man defense which held the Green Archers to just 32.4 percent shooting from the field (23-of-71) and a benign 4-of-23 from beyond the arc (17.4 percent).
THE UP DEFENSE WAS A FORTRESS.
The stiff resistance allowed UP to eke out a 66-63 nail-biter and even the best-of-three series at 1-1.
The Fighting Maroons complemented their lockdown defensive mode with a balanced attack that did not require Alarcon to do all the heavy lifting in scoring.
Highlighted by one big shot after another in the final three minutes of play, Gerry Abadiano led the way with 17 points. Francis Nnoruka added 13 points and 13 boards while Rey Remogat drilled four 3s.
Held to just eight points in Game One, the 24-year old Abadiano, a two-time UAAP champion, summoned his big-game experience to keep UP afloat in the homestretch of a spandex-tight contest marked by three lead changes and five deadlocks.
In a post-game interview, the Iloilo native credited "consistency" and doing the "small things" such as "boxing out" as the reasons why his team has lived to fight another day.
THE OTHER JACOB SHINES THIS TIME.
Believe it or not, there was arguably an even bigger hero for UP besides Abadiano - Jacob Bayla.
Held to just 13 minutes and 07 seconds of action in the series opener, Bayla was activated to full duty in Game Two where he logged 25:44 and harrassed La Salle's Cortez like a debt collector.
Using his 6-foot-5, 205-lb frame, Bayla held the 5-foot-11, 190-lb Cortez to 16 points on a nightmarish 6-of-15 shooting that included a 1-for-6 fare from 3.
With a chance to either knot the count at 65 or go ahead by one with a 3, Bayla and a trapping UP defense denied Cortez the opportunity to come up with his usual magic, forcing Vhoris Marasigan instead to take a contested 3 that rimmed out.
If this were an election, the Game Three winner-take-all on Wednesday is what pundits describe as "too close to call."
It wouldn't be smart to bet against Cortez having another "off" day, but then again who's to say UP can't pull off the same defensive gem for all the marbles?
The plot thickens.
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