inboundpass.com – Covering Philippine college basketball / UAAP, NCAA, PCC

NOPE, this isn’t a parable. Nor is this the title of a hip children’s book. Nor does this have something solely to do with college hoops, the operative term being solely. Come on, its February. For UAAP and NCAA pundits, the second month of the calendar year is called rest.

Let’s get to the point. This is about the hullaballoo that was the Talk N Text walkout in its Game 4 encounter with the Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings. After Tropang Texter big man Ranidel de Ocampo was slapped with a flagrant 2 and the automatic ejection that comes with it for an elbow to the face of a driving Ronald Tubid, coach Chot Reyes spent a few seconds consulting his superiors (yup, the TnT management) before gesturing to his players to leave the playing court.

The game was eventually awarded to Ginebra by forfeit since Reyes’ troops thought that enough was enough. On television, the “winning” coach, Ginebra mentor and former De La Salle tactician Jong Uichico faced the press, and among other things, said that the walkout is a sign that Reyes and the TnT squad were playing “mind games” with him. A few minutes later, Reyes himself took the hot seat and cited some numbers. To paraphrase his anger-driven tirade, the Ateneo alum stated that the only thing he wanted was a fair chance at winning, something he couldn’t get since Ginebra, through three games, had gone to the charity stripe about 40 times more than his squad despite playing more of a perimeter game than taking an in-your-face approach, which theoretically should give you less chances at the free throw line.

As of the moment, those are the facts. Surely, the drama will unfold in the next two days. This whole situation, however, concerns not just the pro league or the two franchises involved. Trust me, it’s more than that.

Scratching the surface a little bit reveals that the Ginebra franchise is operated by the Cojuangco family, while Talk N Text is Manny V. Pangilinan territory. On the court, the walkout wasn’t the first spat between the two franchises. Earlier in the conference, San Miguel, another one of the Cojuangcos’ squads, “sought clarification” before the league since Talk N Text was forced to delay the start of its game with the Beermen in Zamboanga City after it had brought the wrong set of jerseys. TnT’s win was upheld by the Commissioner’s Office.

In the PBA boardroom, relations between the two parties, are, at best, similar to the US and former Soviet Union during the Cold War (e.g. Smart Gilas’ stint in the PBA). Off the court, Pangilinan and the Cojuangcos were recently embroiled in a dispute over control of the Manila Electric Co., or Meralco.

Call it bad blood, but the walkout, along with Uichico’s “mind games” remarks, is very much what warfare analysts call Mutually Assured Destruction. In other words, it’s on. Whether or not this will make for good drama (it will, I’m sure), however, isn’t the issue here.

First of all, let’s look at the “smaller” picture. In this instance, that has to do with Talk N Text’s complaints about officiating. Is this something new? Duh…? So what’s the moral of the story?

You see, officiating is very similar to two guys trying to get to know a girl whom they initially like. At the start, guys A and B are strongly attracted to the wit and charm and long hair and plump lips and whatever of the girl. As they say, two’s a company and three’s a crowd, so it’s guy A who gets to strike a good conversation with the hot chick, with guy B gradually playing the role of the wallflower. When the dust clears, guy A talks about how great the girl is with his buddies, while guy B says it won’t be worth pursuing her since she’s not ok to hang out with, makes people around her feel uncomfortable, etc. etc. Soon enough, guy B tells the world that the girl comes off as a dimwit with a million split ends and cracking lips.

In short, there are always going to be two versions of one reality. The losing team will blame it on the refs if it can’t get its game going, like guy B, whereas the last thing the winning squad will do is whine because it’s hitting its stride.

In basketball, there’s such a thing as playing through situations. Inevitably, there’ll be times when a coach or a bunch of players will feel they’re on the wrong end of the deal. But as they say, play through it. If you don’t, that’s when officiating becomes the scapegoat.

This brings us to my point. Clamoring for “fair” officiating is like asking for world peace. There will never be a fairly officiated game because that game involves two opposing teams, where one will win and one will lose. Inevitably, there will be two versions of officiating – one from the victors, and one from the victims. If players and coaches can’t understand this, it would be best for them to find another job.

Now, to the “bigger picture.” Considering that six of the eight UAAP squads are being managed – either partially or fully – by big businessmen and/or battalions of alumni, college hoops ceases to become college hoops alone. To a large degree, they come to resemble pro squads with smaller logos of Smart, Globe Duo and The Old Spaghetti House. This is both good and bad for the game – I’ll save a heavier set of opinions on that for a rainy day.

The only thing we, writers, bloggers, fans, die-hards or what have you, could hope for is that the collegiate game would not be infiltrated by conflicting corporate and even vested interests. Those things would only mess up the game we all love.

For everyone’s sake, just let the college kids play so that, eventually, they won’t have to walk out, and could land the hot chick and be rich men. Oh, and enough of the whining, too.

Posted in Columns, Postgame