Crispa's Comeback: Dalupan Tells How He Pulled It Off (Sports World, 1973)

Sports World Magazine

May 12, 1973

 

 

            For a winner, Virgilio (Baby) Dalupan sounded unsatisfied. “Credit it to determination and the fighting spirit of my boys,” he said of Crispa-Flor’s victory in the National Invitational. But, he said, for Crispa-Floro to stay up there, “we’ll have to tighten up on plays, sharpen combinations and maximize teamwork…”

 

            As of now, Baby thinks Willie Adornado as the team’s best shot does not get enough support from his teammates. Adornado’s baskets are fashioned out “mostly on his own,” says Baby, with minimum of screen or feed.

 

            Rudy Soriano “still commits too many errors,” which Baby believes could be minimized “with a little more careful playing…”

 

            His ball carriers, Atoy Co and Rey Franco, “still have to develop the knack of maintaining balanced play…” By this, Baby meant a ball carrier’s role of setting up an offensive play at the same time being ever primed to defend in the event of a turnover.

 

            “Both boys hang on to the ball too long, wasting precious time dribbling. Franco many times commits himself irrevocably so that a block or a rebound play finds him way away from his position….”

            Co, who Dalupan concedes, is a better than average shot, tends to be individualistic especially when miffed. There had been cases when Co would haul in the rebound, dribble all the way and score. “It’s spectacular basketball,” Baby says, “but not good basketball…”

 

            Danny Pecache came in for a share of tsk-tsks. “Maybe it’s because of the added responsibility of being team captain,” Baby said, “but Pecache now plays a little more tense, a little more uncertainly…”

 

 

 

            Does this mean he would institute changes in the lineup come the next MICAA series?

 

            “Of course not,” Baby said. “I just wanted to show that our team won with such shortcomings, and that determination and fighting spirit, everything else equal constitute 90 percent of winning a game.”

 

            “My team has the talent, height, scoring sock, youth, dedication, just about every attribute essential for the molding of a superior team.”

 

            “If Adornado gets his assists, Co and Franco learn to dribble less and pass more, Soriano cuts down on errors, Pecache steadies, I’d even say Crispa-Floro would be the team to beat in the next MICAA.”

 

            “For these boys are my mainstays, make no mistake about it, they are, for all their lapses, the people I rely on.

 

            “By the next MICAA, I have the feeling these boys, who know their basketball from A to Z and more important, know how to adjust, will be a much more potent outfit than the one that clinched the National Invitational, what with Ed Carvajal and the Cezar brothers, Chito Afable and Rey Pages by then weaved effectively into the team’s play and patterns.”

 

            “I repeat, credit the National Invitational win to determination and fighting spirit…but I’m looking forward to Crispa glory of 1969-72 being duplicated by my mixture of oldtimers and newcomers…Danny (Floro, team owner and manager) and I are agreed we already have the material on hand, and that this team might even be better than the record of the Crispa team then. One thing I know, this team is going to try awfully hard to up that 90 percent gauge to 100…”

 

Adornado: A Closeup (Sports World, 1973)

Sports World Magazine

May 12, 1973

 

 

            It was the 1967 Inter-Secondary basketball end of competitions at the Rizal Coliseum. On the floor were the Divine Word College five of Legaspi City and the De La Salle juniors. One of the Greenies was Mike Bilbao, who later was to earn his spurs as a full-fledged Mariwasa-Akai Recorder.

 

            But the fellow who attracted the most attention was a Bicolano standing six feet tall who had one of the sweetest jump shots this side of the Pacific. He was plunking in baskets with authority and some questions elicited the fact that back home in the port city of Legaspi, the kid averaged some 25 points per game, with a high of 48.

 

            The following year, the kid was trying out with University of Santo Tomas’ varsity five under Rogelio Serafico. He was not recruited. He just tried out and made it. That year, he was a University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) senior, together with – among others – Lawrence Mumar, George Lizares and Andrew Malkinson.

 

            Five years later, they were to play in the same tournament but under different banners. In the 1973 National Seniors, Mumar was with Universal Textile, Lizares with Mariwasa, Malkinson with Jewels Athletic Club and William Adornado with a Crispa team that was trying to recover from the forcible loss of six stalwarts.

 

 

 

            Without Danilo Florencio and Adriano Papa on the forward line, Crispa coach Virgilio (Baby) Dalupan turned to Adornado to supply the needed firepower that might generate a barrage that would flatten all opposition as the old battery did. The pressure was on “Bogs” Adornado to deliver or face up to what many thought was fact – that Adornado without Florencio and Papa cannot deliver.

 

            And Adornado went all out to try and fill the shoes of the two, in the process, burning the oops for 238 points in nine games for a lofty average of 26.44, and scoring a rare double by collaring free throw honors too with a .941 rate of conversion, including a string of 26 hits before winding up with 32 out of 34.

 

            Looking back at it all, tall (6’2), well-set (170 lbs.), Willie Adornado, curly top, at-times wayward left eye (banlag) and all, couldn’t keep from laughing.

 

            “My coach now (Baby Dalupan) is the same guy who tried to have me muzzled during my UAAP days,” he said. And his top partner in UAAP scoring, Larry Mumar, is now one of his keenest rivals in scoring.

Cage Comeback: Rebirth of the Redmanizers (Sports World, 1973)

Sports World

May 5, 1973

E.A. Perez de Tagle

 

 

            There is only one Shin Dong Pa and Medium Industry Bank of Korea has him. Undoubtedly the greatest shot in Asian basketball, Shin burned the hoops at Rizal Memorial Coliseum for an average of 44 points in the five games he played up to this writing. Two hundred and twenty points in all, the low at 39 against Mariwasa and the high of 51 against San Miguel Corporation.

 

            But despite Shin, the MIB five is in the lower strata of standings in the National Invitational tournament, with two wins in five outings. So that Danny Floro and Virgilio (Baby) Dalupan, the redoubtable duo that had gone through thick and thin with Crispa-Floro and lately more of the latter, feel that under the circumstances, the other teams can have their superstars, Crispa-Floro would settle for less.

 

            Not that Crispa has much less, because for a team that got bounced off three championship seats in one season (MICAA All-Filipino, National Seniors, Panamin) and on its own thumbed out superstars like Danny Florencio and Jun Papa and Rudolf Kutch besides putting in cold storage a valuable guard like Johnny Revilla (whose hot temper has exacted its toll of games), the Redmanizers (they are back to being called that after stints as Cement Mixers) have shown – with the present crew – an amazing resiliency that could well bounce them back unto a title seat before the season ends.

 

 

 

            And experts who never gave Crispa a second look are beginning to figure Crispa might just win the National Invitational.

 

            Even if the Redmanizers don’t, they’d still have accomplished enough to put them back in the list of – Danny Floro won’t like this description – super teams.

 

            When Crispa showed up for an exhibition match with a visiting Japanese team shortly after the MICAA All-Filipino which it lost to Mariwasa in two straight games, six players – Florencio, Papa, Kutch, Virgilio Abarrientos, Reynaldo Alcantara and Ernesto De Leon, were conspicuous in their absence. In their stead were four collegians, two from Ateneo and two from the University of the East.

 

            When the National Seniors came around, Dalupan’s initial comments was…”mag-qualify lang, tama na…” (Just to qualify would be enough). The only familiar names left were Fortunato Co, Rodolfo Soriano, Johnny Revilla, William Adornado and Danilo Pecache among those who saw action in the All-Filipino. Luis (Chito) Afable was another familiar name, but he was then with the now-disbanded Seven-Up team. There was talk that Edgardo Carvajal and the Cezar brothers, David and Philip of Jose Rizal College, were already with Crispa. But the three played for JRC.

 

            The most significant addition to the Redmanizers was Alberto Guidaben, a 6-foot-5 center of Colegio de San Jose Recoletos, finalist in the Inter-Collegiate against eventual winner, Far Eastern University.

 

            This team, which had other invited collegiate players like Romeo Santos, Contrado Banal, Horacio Moreno, David Brodett, David Wong, Francisco Henares and Cesar Ijares are not only qualified but was a thorn on the side of the favored teams. It lost to Mariwasa by two points, 84-82, and to San Miguel Corporation, 110-105, in overtime. Mariwasa and SMC were the teams that disputed the title.

 

            Next came the Panamin, and more changes as rules were that no NCAA or UAAP player may play for any commercial outfit. Guidaben was good for one game and no more as he was downed by a bout of typhoid. Revilla got into a fight with Concepcion Industry’s Rogelio Melencio and was banned from play for two years, he being, as the Basketball Association of the Philippines said it, a “recidivist.”

 

            But Carvajal came in to fill Guidaben’s shoes and until the final day, the Redmanizers were in the thick of the race, losing only to eventual champion YCO in the closing minutes of the game, 89-81. Among the scalps Crispa collected were those of Invitational champion Concepcion Industries by 83-78; National Seniors champion San Miguel Corporation by 99-94; and hapless Komatsu, 103-89.

 

            Dalupan didn’t say so but he must have felt after a couple of test runs that his new mixture of Redmanizers was ready for the big test. In Crispa’s first outing in the National Invitational, Clark’s Diplomats was easily dispensed of at 104-87. Concepcion was next at 96-90. Shin Dong Pa sizzled for 48 points but Crispa prevailed over Medium Bank, 106-97, and in this game, Fortunato Co was able to check Shin to six points in the last 10 minutes of play.

 

 

 

            Mariwasa went the way of losers by 102-95, and Crispa toppled YCO, 98-96, in a game that saw the Redmanizers wipe out an 18-point deficit and blow up in turn a nine-point edge, 96-87.

 

            “Suerte lang,” (plain luck), gasped Coach Dalupan. But there, the Redmanizers were two wins away from another championship. How Crispa will be known by the time this issue goes off the press. San Miguel Corporation and Yue Loong definitely will be tough obstacles to hurdle, especially since tension will be riding the unbeaten Redmanizers hard all the way.

 

            But Crispa’s potent offensive line of Olympian Willie Adornado, averaging 21.8 points per game, pivotman extraordinaire Rodolfo Soriano, 19 flat; utility man Atoy Co, 18.6; plus 6-foot-6 Ed Carvajal, steady and reliable skipper Danny Pecache, and dangerous-in-the-clutch Chito Afable and David Cezar, this writer says what’s a limb for if not to go out on, so we do and say Crispa puts on a new crown.