‘Ondoy’ rains out title duel between Blue Eagles, Red Warriors

Defending champion Ateneo and its chief rival University of the East can plot and fine-tune their respective battle-plans a little more as the UAAP reset Game 1 of the Season 72 men's basketball championship series to Thursday. UAAP president Anton Montinola said the board decided to call off the game originally slated Sunday due to the heavy rains and floods around Metro Manila and parts of Luzon brought forth by tropical storm “Ondoy" the whole day Saturday. Montinola said the opener of the best-of-three title showdown will instead be played on Thursday, October 1, also at the Araneta Coliseum. Tickets for Sunday’s game will be honored on Thursday, Montinola announced.

The four-day postponement will give both the Eagles and the Warriors enough time to prepare and at the same time rest their weary bodies. The top-seeded Eagles will be coming off a lot fresher though, having already enjoyed a one-week break since easily beating No. 4 University of Santo Tomas, 81-64, in the Final Four round last Sunday. The No. 3 Red Warriors had to extinguish the No. 2 Tamaraws’ twice-to-beat semis advantage with an 84-74 win in the first meeting last Saturday and a 78-73 triumph last Thursday before advancing to the championship. Currently with an eight-game winning streak dating back to the eliminations, UE is looking to win its first UAAP men’s title since 1985, when legendary Allan Caidic and Jerry Codinera led the squad from Recto to the Promised Land. Ateneo, unbeaten in its last 11 games since the preliminaries, is, for its part, gunning for back-to-back titles, the second for the Katipunan-based quintet since the crew of Danny Francisco and Jun Reyes achieved the feat in 1987 and 1988. - GMANews.TV