UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas may own the Quadricentennial Pavilion, but it's National University and Ateneo who have enjoyed great success on the Growling Tigers’ home floor.
Both the Bulldogs and the Blue Eagles are undefeated inside the Espana venue in the past two seasons the UAAP has staged games there.
NU is 3-0 dating back to last season, first earning a 69-66 comeback win over Adamson in Oct. 21, 2023.
The boys from Jhocson would then claim the scalp of the top two teams this Season 87, first blasting the University of the Philippines in a shocking 67-47 upset last Nov. 3 followed by a 63-54 escape from La Salle on Wednesday.
READ: UPset alert! Lowly yet hungry NU takes fight out of UP
Bulldogs coach Jeff Napa doesn’t want to put too much thought on the surprising trend, however, saying, “Nataon lang talaga. Kapitbahay kasi namin.”
READ: NU extinguishes La Salle's nine-game hot streak
Ateneo, for its part, carries a perfect 2-0 record, stunning UST in its home court, 67-64, last Oct. 19, and then fending off a Precious Momowei-less University of the East, 71-67, also on Wednesday.
READ: Ateneo adds onto misery of Final Four-seeking UE
Yet for Blue Eagles coach Tab Baldwin, until there comes a time that all eight UAAP member-schools have venues to boast of like QPav, it’s a trend he wishes will not be the norm.
“It's ok that we’re playing here. UST has a beautiful facility and it’s nice to be able to use it when necessary,” he said.
“But honestly, even with Blue Eagle Gym on [the Ateneo] campus coming online next year and it’s gonna be a nice facility, I hope we don’t go to these auxiliary facilities unless everybody has them, then we could play home and away and that would be great, but I think we’re years and years from that.”
To the decorated mentor, having venues like Smart Araneta Coliseum and Mall of Asia Arena is one of the things which makes basketball in the Philippines unique, as compared to other leagues in the world, may it be professional or amateur.
“I think one of the things that is special about the UAAP that not a lot of Filipinos don’t realize is that you can go to major professional leagues around the world and you’re not gonna play week-in and week-out in venues as good as Araneta and MOA. I think that’s a special thing for the players to play in those venues,” he said.
Big venues for the big-time
And it’s not just for collegiate teams.
Playing in these big venues also helps national team players not be fazed with the big stage and bright lights when they play internationally.
“I think it really helps our national team, too, because Filipino players never seem to be awed by the occasion, and I think that’s because we have so many occasions of our competitions here. That’s something that can be daunting for a lot of international players: to walk in to a stadium of 20,000 people and they’ve never been in a stadium bigger than 6,000 to 7,000,” said Baldwin.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I love the Araneta and MOA environment and they’ve presented so many wonderful memories for so many players over the years and I don’t see any reason we should be losing that at this point.”
To an extent, Napa agrees despite the proximity of the UST venue to that of the NU main campus in Manila, saying that as good of a venue as QPav is, he just has one complaint.
“Madali lang lakarin, 'di kami nata-traffic. Ang hirap nga lang ng parking,” he chuckled.
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