The opening week of the UAAP is up, and it’s time for some observations and notes from the first week of action…
ID’s for the coaching staff. One of the newest rules of the UAAP this season, all coaching staff and team staff members are now required to wear ID’s to identify themselves to the security. Apparently, one coach forgot his simple task of wearing a freaking UAAP ID. That moron’s name is Franz Pumaren. He did the infraction against Ateneo, nonetheless. The multi-titled coach committed a rookie mistake by not wearing his ID and that cost his team a bonus 2 points to rivals Ateneo. The T on Franz was a decision that enraged legions of Lasallians during and after the game. Narvasa didn’t help either as he turned down any attempts of explaining the call and related rule. Brother Bernie asked a clarification, in which Narvasa only uttered CASE CLOSED to put a rest on the case. This pompous and arrogant act of Eagle Riggs prompted a group of La Salle students and alumni to mock the rule by wearing personalized ID’s and chanting the immaculate “ID! ID! ID!” after La Salle’s victory over FEU.
Sharon Yu and Kamae de Jesus are the girls to watch out for. There are two lady reporters to watch out in the UAAP Courtside Reporting. BAR NONE. These two ladies exude confidence and beauty like no other reporter can do. Sharon and Kamae are the only two girls that have been the fantasy of UAAP fan boys and have been the reason for the increase in UAAP fan cults by 100 percent. Kamae is touted to be the second coming of Lia Cruz, primarily from the looks (because they look alike a lot) to the way she delivers reports. A bit more polishing and she will be really the second coming of hot mama Lia Cruz. Sharon Yu’s the perfect follow-up to the excellent pool of past DLSU courtside reporters — from Micky Deles, George Rocha, Agnes Tapia, Sharon is the perfect replacement for La Salle. Sharon Yu and Kamae de Jesus are the only reporters to watch. Forget the rest. By the way, who the hell is Portia?
Japs Cuan can now make freethrows. And he shoots with the right hand now. Gone are the days when we have to watch Cuan bleed for freethrow makes. His freethrow shooting looks so much bearable to watch now. He has improved the freethrow shooting fundamentals, which has yielded results — for now. He now can make 2 out of 2 one more time in a game. That’s a considerable improvement given that he can’t hit anything but the iron in the past years from the freethrow line. For the first time in UST’s colorful history, Thomasians could already demand or expect Japs Cuan to make at least one of his freethrows in a 2-foul shot trip. His jumpshot is still a work in progress but at least the freethrows are paying dividends — forget it being just meager. Japs Cuan can shoot freethrows now. That’s more than enough for Pido and UST.
Ateneo has a third color in their jersey. Ateneo de Manila has been one of the schools who have been strict about their colors and team logo. This year, they’re throwing the Blue and White jersey tradition all the way. They have added a third color to their jersey — black in the sides of their jersey. The color black’s meanining to the rich Ateneo tradition is still being researched by The 15th Parallel although the black color can represent Ateneo’s tradition of black-hearted fans like the ever-loving Mama Eagle, the guys who carried the suspended banner, the guy who drew a mop at Adamson fans in a game and the one who challenged last year’s UAAP commish Ed Cordero to a fisticuff. Maybe it’s a telltale sign from heaven that the Eagles won’t win the championship this season. I don’t know, but what I know is that the black lining at the sides of the jersey doesn’t look good.
One rivalry, one apparel brand sponsor. Rivals Ateneo and La Salle are now under one apparel brand - Adidas. One more UAAP school is under Adidas, and that is Adamson. Ateneo got there first being under Adidas. then La Salle followed up in act by signing a memorandum of agreement or a contract with Adidas as the school’s official outfitter. Lucky for these schools who are both under Adidas, Gilbert Arenas was in town just in time for the rivals’ game. He graced the first ADMU-DLSU game this season, causing it to be delayed by 30 minutes. Pacquiao’s appearance also did not help as his ceremonies lasted for also approximately 30 minutes. The game became a social event, which is not really new in Ateneo-La Salle games because it is a social event in itself. Arenas went into the locker room of both camps and gave them some words of inspiration and encouragement. Here is Arenas’ blog on his Manila experience.
UST has shorter banners now. These banners read GROWLING AS ONE and CAMPIONE. That’s the most of what The 15th Parallel correspondents have seen. The makers of the huge and useless KAMI PO ANG UNIBERSIDAD NG SANTO TOMAS have come up with a better idea to recycle their banner that used to cover basically the whole Upper A Section. They washed off the old pentel pen strokes, cut the banners into smaller pieces thus giving them more slogan options. As a result of the labor division among generous Thomasians, they were also put better and more colorful designs in their new look banners, something they didn’t do in their long banner that looked more like of a basahan. And besides, who gives a flying fuck anyway if you’re from UST if the people you’re raising the KAMI PO ANG UNIBERSIDAD NG SANTO TOMAS banner against are from Ateneo/La Salle/UP?
Canned music for the Blue Babble Batallion. Excited with their progress at the cheer dancing division of the UAAP, the Blue Babble Batallion of Ateneo de Manila started using canned music with super dance mega remixes of dance and RNB songs. This is actually not new because they suprised the La Salle crowd LAST YEAR by pulling off a super dance remix routine. This drew negative comments and shocked most of the people from the green side because Ateneo, aside from La Salle, are known for traditional cheering in the UAAP with their famous lines like Halikinu and Fabilioh for Ateneo and Rektikano and Zama Zipa Zam for La Salle. Progress really conflicts with tradition, Ateneo now is like a representation Beijing of the UAAP. They incorporate progress in their halftime show with the canned music and tradition with the hard and stiff BBB cheer boys. And fuck it, I have good analogy skills.
The DLSU Pep Squad ladies’ uniform is now well-covered. Known for having one of the more daring and more exposed lady cheerleader uniforms in the UAAP, The De La Salle Pep or conveniently known now as the Animo Squad, changed the trend in their uniforms for their ladies. Gone are the days where the ladies were wearing pieces of clothing that would expose their armpits, their stomachs, their backs, not even their arms can be seen now. The upper garment became as conservative as the lolos and the lolas were conservative 50 or 60 years ago. If there’s any consolation, it appears that the skirts of the ladies became shorter, therefore allowing the people to have more leg exposure. But we want more arm and abs exposure, like the UP Pep!
More people are now coming for UP. We really don’t know if this is the effect of their win in the CDC last year or the effect of their first win vs NU last week, but it’s a refreshing site to see more UP people come to the games to cheer for their alma mater. Last year was a really hopeless case for the team, this year comes with hopes and promises for these bunch of young kids. I don’t know what’s wrong with Migs de Asis though, he’s in his third year already and yet he plays like a first year high school kid. He’s slowly turning to be a hopeless case. Trigger-happy player, has poor dribbling and can’t take the ball to the hole. He wasn’t like that really when they were still in Zobel. He was better than Martin Reyes, now it’s completely different. It’s good to see more people cheering for UP now. At least we could hear those chants of “U! NIBERSIDAD! NG PILIPINAS!” louder than last year.
FEU does not cheer GET THAT BALL now. Well, they used to, didn’t they? The Tams and their fans moved 5 steps ahead in originality and intellectual property rights by stopping to cheer Ateneo de Manila’s GET THAT BALL and adapting the more generic and for-all “DEFENSE!” cheer. The 15th Parallel have also noticed that their LET’S GO TAMARAWS cheer have been enhanced due to the transfer to the aforementioned generic defensive cheer. Give credit to FEU, all the criticisms of being the numero uno cheer-ripper from both Ateneo and La Salle has caused the Morayta-based university to rely on the talent of their students, if there’s any, to new create cheers and drumbeats for their school to bring to the games. As a result, the FEU crowd is now very bearable to watch. Plus they bring good banners that are not as big as UST’s long and inutile basahan. UE takes over their place with the faster GIT DAT BOL comprising of 90 percent shrieking and wailing women and GO UE GO GO UE which was taken from La Salle.
S71 referees are the most incompetent in UAAP history. If you think you have already seen the best (worst) of the NABRO referee crew, you are so wrong. Good news is, they probably have a shot at making this season as their worst and most incompetent season if they continue going on with the way how they call the games, and if Narvasa continues to turn a blind eye on the travesties of the refs who are supposed to be guardians of fair play and sportsmanship. These referees are the very first ones to cheat in the games, trying to protect gambling bets. This happens especially when powerhouse teams meet, when the odds spread is close. Notice how one referee blows the whistle against a team who has the momentum and trying to make a push. Also notice how they they even it out by making tons of make-up calls on the other side to even out the foul situation after the spread has been met. It doesn’t take a basketball or odds genius to notice these peculiarities. The calls are either too thin, but they don’t call much on plays that involve obvious fouls. They give too much freethrows too. This helps them to achieve their objective of keeping the spread close. The UAAP needs to realize that they need to stop on using NABRO as referees and the hiring of Chito Narvasa as the UAAP commissioner was one of the league’s biggest mistakes.
Eric Salamat looks like Smeagol. ‘Nuff said. ANGAS MO MASYADO HAHAHAHA!!!
