UAAP Season 71 Finals: Ateneo vs La Salle News Links

HOT TICKETS

Sold out in just over three hours. That was how fast tickets for Sunday’s UAAP championship showdown between Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University were gobbled up Monday, underscoring the intensity of their age-old rivalry and the rabid loyalty of the fans of the two elite schools. TicketNet, the ticketing network of the Araneta Coliseum, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that it had to close the box office at 12:30 p.m. Monday after opening the ticket booths at 9 a.m. “There were people who camped out overnight, there was already a line by 4 a.m.,” said a TicketNet representative.

Select Words From Franz & Black

Biting words were exchanged after long-time arch rivals Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University forged the much anticipated Finals series in the 71st men’s basketball competition starting this Sunday at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. “Whether they admit it or not, man for man, they have the best players,” said Green Archers coach Franz Pumaren of the Blue Eagles. “They trained abroad, they have a Grand Slam coach, they have blue-chip rookies. Everything is on their side.” And the retort from Ateneo coach Norman Black also came quick: “If he wants to consider his team as underdogs, it’s totally up to him. I’m more worried about my team and the fact that we have to be ready on Sunday.”

The Seventy-Year War: Ateneo vs. La Salle

Perhaps the only other sporting event that stops the entire country is a fight by Manny Pacquiao. But an Ateneo-La Salle match is altogether on a different level. It hits the national psyche more. The game accounts go beyond the sports pages and into the headline news and opinion columns. Its momentous victories and crushing defeats are the stuff of legends. Its combatants are icons and immortals. And next to one’s food consumption and office stress, the games are responsible for more cases of high blood pressure, heart palpitations, and nervous breakdowns. Families and bloodlines are drawn between the two. Inter-marriages between alumni from either school remind one of the Capulets and the Montagues.

Baclao eyes 1st UAAP title with Ateneo Eagles

Twelve points, nine rebounds and two blocks is no mean feat indeed for Ateneo Blue Eagles forward Severino ‘Nonoy’ Baclao as the former West Negros University Mustang helped his team to a 70-50 rout of the University of the East Warriors Sunday in the ongoing UAAP men’s basketball wars at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. “I guess we really didn’t expect the game against UE to turn out that way. As I told you earlier, we were preparing for a really tight game. But I think that kind of win will help us a lot in our forthcoming title series with the Archers,” Baclao told Sun.Star Bacolod Monday.

Ateneo, DLSU coaches: Pressure part of rivalry

Norman Black said the hype cannot be avoided. Franz Pumaren called the pressure to win over his team’s archrival as “something his players were already born with”. Welcome to the massive stage known as the Ateneo-De La Salle championship series. And along with the games—three in all if the title series goes the full route—come the pomp, the hype, and the you-can’t-lose-to-that-team type of pressure that all exist inside and outside the Big Dome hardwood. But both coaches admitted they’ve gotten used to the electric—or sometimes, blown-up—mood the biggest rivalry in all of Philippine basketball brings.

Ateneo - La Salle Finals Part Podcast

Hosted by Charlie Cuna, Kim Lesaca, Mike Abasolo, and The Green Mind - Tony L. Atayde, completing the original members of the crew, discuss the Final Four games, the dreaded UAAP Season 71 Officiating and The Ateneo - La Salle Finals, all in this rare two-part special.

‘Our colors just don’t mix this time of the year’

Norman Black and Franz Pumaren couldn’t have gone any farther apart after severing a partnership that had been so successful in the professional league. Import-player. Coach-player. Coach-assistant coach. They’ve shared almost every form of basketball relationship during their San Miguel/Magnolia days in the ’80s. But years after their path forked apart, that relationship has taken a different, less-friendly twist. “You can see what colors we’re wearing right now and somehow those two colors just don’t mix at this time of the year,” said Black.

Friendship takes a backseat

Allies in the past, Norman Black and Franz Pumaren will be setting aside mementos of friendship and tokens of gratitude starting Sunday when the forces of fate call on them to take up arms and go to war against each other. Black will carry the flag for the Ateneo Blue Eagles and Pumaren will wave the banner for the De La Salle Green Archers, and their battlefield will be the 2008 UAAP Finals, a best-of-three showdown that could bring forth the best and the worst from college basketball’s most celebrated arch enemies.

ADM 102: SHORT COURSE - Introduction to Ateneo-La Salle Games

Course Description: The course introduces the student-cheerer to the dynamics and principles of the Ateneo-La Salle rivalry. The course employs both theoretical and application dimensions. The theoretical phase exposes the student to the history of the rivalry, the tradition of cheering, the construction of the ideal Atenean 6th Man, and other theoretical concepts. The application phase on the other hand requires the student to put into practice all the theoretical principles. These practices include, among others: effective skills in lining up for the games, cheering (pre-game, during the game, half-time and post-game), jeering, heckling, creating effective posters and banners for one’s favorite players and posing and smiling for Fabilioh.com.

Tiu and Casio want to leave with a bang

Chris Tiu of Ateneo de Manila and JV Casio of De la Salle are hoping to leave a mark in their final season in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). Tiu and Casio are expected to play starring roles when the Eagles and the Archers begin their best-of-three title series on Sunday at the Araneta Coliseum. Both players are having their best season since they started suiting up in 2003. Casio, a prized recruit from the San Beda Red Cubs of coach Ato Badolato, began his rookie season with a solid role for the Green Archers. He averaged 9.1 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists to capture rookie of the year honors. But he would be remembered a year later when he sank a game-winning triple late that gave the Archers the 2004 championship.

Ateneo - La Salle Tickets Available Over at eBay Philippines

My, my, the hottest tickets in town finally made its way over at eBay Philippines. Via Cheftonio, the Ateneo - La Salle tickets links at eBay are here, here and here. For these incoming finals games, The PNP is really strict on scalpers and already few are caught and charged. But, it looks like if you do sell over in the interwebs and jack up the price 1000%, that’s not scalpering but online enterprising geniuses. :-) Turns out, scalpering in eBay is ok. So, rather than be at the gates of Araneta and peddle your tickets for sale, eBay is the way.