1973 MICAA Finals Numbers: Toyota Comets beat Concepcion Motorolas, 81-75 (Game, 1973)

Game Magazine

August, 1973

Fort Yerro

 

 

Statistics are like tarot cards; properly read, they tell a story. Thursday’s frenetic finale of the MICAA championship series, as pieced together from assorted, seemingly unrelated figures, is a story serving as a primer on the Mathematics of Defeat.

 

“The hardest way is the sweetest way,” intoned Coach Valentin “Tito” Eduque of the Concepcion Motorolas before Game Three with the Toyota Comets. Little did he know that the wrath of math would fall on his charges. For sweet indeed was the 73-72 pulse-pounder the Motorolas carved out of Game Two. The price of that victory, however, was high.

 

Concepcion lost Rogelio Melencio who, after his rib-snapping fall in the second half, painfully watched Game Three from the bench. Melencio was his team’s top rebounder for the best -of-three series, averaging 5 rebounds a game. He had good reason to watch Game Three from the sidelines than on delayed telecast from a hospital bed: his teammates had dedicated the game to him.

 

 

 

The Motorolas had banked on the dreaded artillery, featuring Arthur Herrera and lanky Jaime Mariano, to neutralize Toyota’s bulk and height. Post-game figures proved the strategy wrong. Howitzers against Sherman tanks was a mismatch.

 

Concepcion started Game Three with Mariano’s gun ablaze. He converted 7 of his 10 attempts from the field, and missed only 2 of his 6 charities in the first half. Ramon Lucindo and Alfonso Marquez provided fire support. Hotshot Herrera settled for a single lay-up.

 

For the Toyotas, it was Camus weaving wonders with his hook shots. Cristino Reynoso and Ompong Segura were also swishing the nets. Ramon Fernandez delivered twice from beneath, but he ran into foul trouble and sat out the rest of the first half. Lemontime score was in Concepcion’s favor, 45-42. The howitzers were holding out against the Shermans.

 

Sonny Jaworski took over Toyota’s scoring chore in the second half, notching 14 points. Mariano, who hurt a finger, slackened, sinking only 4 out of 10 field tries. His total output for the night: 26 points, a game high. His accuracy from the field was 46.1%.

 

 

 

Mariano had a spree, but the rest of the team were badly off. Herrera never found his bearings, shackled by a string of guards thrown at him. The Comets outscored the Motolas in the second half, 39-30, cashing in on six Concepcion errors to wrest the lead in the third quarter and ice Game Three. Toyota had better accuracy from the field, 41%, from 33 successful shots out of 80 attempts. Concepcion registered 37% (30 out of 81). The Motorolas were not shooting as expected, but that’s not even half of the story.

 

On the foul line, where a player shoots free of any interference, the Motorolas converted only 15 of 24 attempts for a poor 60%. Toyota, awarded 18 gift shots, muffed only 3 for 83.3%.

 

A look at the rebounding column dispels all doubts as to the Comets’ source of strength. They outrebounded the Motorolas, 45-29, with 6’3, 205-pound Alberto Reynoso and well-positioned Orlando Bauzon hauling down 5 each. Jaime Noblezada, built like a stone, snatched 5 rebounds for the Motorolas; Mariano, stretching his 6’4 frame, grabbed 4.

 

And that’s how the numbers told their tale.

 

(A special note of thanks to Lourdes Estrella, a friend of GAME, for helping out with the figures.)

The Secret of Toyota’s Success (Game, 1973)

Game Magazine

August, 1973

Arturo D. Cariaga

 

 

From a small flickering distant light, a comet grows to an intense bright flame illumining the heavens. This is how the Toyotas shone in the current MICAA games, proving that they deserve to be called the Comets.

 

They were the cellar-dwellrs in the Panamin tournament last summer and improved imperceptively during the Palaro. Such lackluster performances earned them virulent derision from the bleacher bullies. And when the MICAA season rolled in, the oddsmakers were quick to consign the Comets way behind older ball clubs like YCO, Mariwasa and San Miguel.

 

To everyone’s surprise, however the Toyotas put up a spirited campaign and entered every game like it was their last.

 

Smelling a secret behind their rapid rise, we sought, cajoled, cornered, baited, buttonholed, studied, befriended, spied on, raided, pleaded with, hounded, chassed, inveigled, intruded on, enticed, induced, observed, bothered, and (hingal!), brooded about the Toyotas. In the end found out that they had no secret at all, their success was due to only one factor: a strict regimen of physical fitness and round-the-clock program to improve their game.

Regular roadwork covering at least eight kilometers, weights, calisthenics, and practice scrimmages comprise one aspect of their training. They eat a protein and iron-rich diet, get adequate rest and sleep, and just enough relaxation.

 

They study their games, both as individual players and as a team, and regularly hold clinics with their coach and trainer. A video camera helps recall how they actually played against rival teams.

 

Although the value of individual skills is recognized, teamwork and cooperation are given emphasis. Either we win as a team or go down as a team seems to be the slogan of team coach, Nilo Verona.

 

But the crucial factor that determines the success of any team is the attitude of the players composing it. Do they really aspire to win, to improve their game? Do they relate well to one another so that the welfare of the entire team becomes more important than a single player’s glory? Are they inspired by the others, by their coach and their manager? Do they give the best of themselves everytime they step inside the court?

 

To know all these, we set out one evening to see the Toyotas in scrimmage and talked to some of their outstanding players.

 

Sludging along like the proverbial postman. Swing down Pasong Tamo Extension into a brand-new gym. Warm light of mercury vapor cascading from the rooftop and the shouts of men pouring their juices and strengths in a practice scrimmage.

 

Sonny Jaworski, Big Boy Reynoso and the younger Tino, Orly Bauzon, Mon Fernandez, Francis Arnaiz, Segura, Camus, Rodriguez, and the rest of the star-studded Toyota stable. Teams A and B. Mr. Dante Silverio watching with fond, kindly eyes. Coach Nilo Verona cocking his head to the right to catch a positioning error. Shouting instructions. “O.O, what kind of dee-fense is that?”

 

Despite the foul weather, a gaggle of fans watch the scrimmage. Eyes pop up as “Jawo” brings down the ball, fakes a shot, feeds to Arnaiz. A short dribble, a light bend of the knees to give power to the jump, a flick of the wrists, and the ball climbs up to the open mouth of the basket. Clap-clap-clap, respond the benchwarmers to Team A.

 

But Rodriguez inbounding – that fashionable word – throws a baseball pass to Segura at midcourt and Team B has a chance to even the score. Ompong rushes to the keyhole with Fernandez breathing at the back of his neck. Segura in a running jump and the jutting hand of Fernandez threatens a block. Segura shifts the ball from left hand to right, turns around in mid-air and lobs the ball in a hook shot that goes cleanly into the hoop. Clap-clap-clap goes the non-partisan bench.

 

The new Jaworski is evident even in the scrimmage among friends. Not as overeager and ball-hungry as in the Panamin series last summer, he is now feeding, assisting, directing the play, throwing a screen, pulling down the rebound, and otherwise behaving like he was the elder brother of the younger players on the team.

 

He is still as aggressive and rough as ever, hustling for the ball, harassing his man, staring down and wilting the defenses of the opposing team. But he seems to have found a new delight in feeding an open man under the board, and attempts a shot only if he has a clear chance.

 

Banking on his bulk and experience and a surprising style of heads-up basketball, Jawo is the morale-boosting superstar behind the meteoric rise of the Comets (if you’ll pardon that interstellar mixing of metaphors).

 

 

 

Back to the ball game. A barter of set plays and a literal pain in the neck brought about by too much looking up at the towering Toyotas. The scrimmage finally peglegs to a stop. Players start drifting to the open door while the others take a few more practice pops. Ompong has seen Lulu and comes over to say hello. Fort grabs the moment for some quotes, facts and figures.

 

Hovering near Francis. He consents to meet us the following day. Rene starts giving off bright ideas – from the flash gun mounted on the Nikon F. Rolly’s eyes focus on two comely girls just came in from the cold but decides against making a pitch. Two bucks jingling in his pocket.

 

Mr. Silverio, now alone on the court, showing ‘em how to sink in those shots. Counting his score. He converts about fifty percent of his attempts. Not bad.

 

Saturday. Take a cab from the Game den to San Lorenzo Village, listening all the way to the steady whirr and tsk-tsk-tsk of the meter. A modern contraption of fortune.

 

Comet quarters – stronghold of all but the married Toyotas – is a big Spanish-type house in a plush neighborhood of funeral quiet. One big hall. The sala merges with the dining room – one long table with 12 chairs, a smaller square table with four. A billiard table to the left. Kitchen doorway to the right, a clatter of pans, the smell of cooking. Also to the right, immediately as you come in, are steps leading to the bedrooms. Sit down on the sofa. Above you are wrought iron chandeliers looking heavy enough to bash in your brains and twelve blowups of the team members (kulang yata) and a bikinied girl enjoying Australian surf on a Qantas poster. Two TV sets, a stereo, two Daikin wall-type aircons, a white racer bike leaning on the hallway. Under the coffee table before you, looking like a limp rag, is a white Pekingese. Asleep.

 

After some minutes of tiddling our thumbs, we go back to the front porch. Take photos of Arnaiz bathed in sufficient light as soon as he arrives. But it is Fort who arrives first. Better late than never.

 

“I know now why they call us Press. We are always pressed for time.”

 

“Corny.”

 

“There he is. With Big Boy.”

 

“Hi, Francis.”

 

“Hi. Sorry. Did you wait very long?”

 

“It’s all right. Can we begin now?”

 

“Sure.”

Men in a Spot: The Fallen Idols (Sports World, 1973)

Sports World Magazine

July 21, 1973

 

 

            DANNY FLORENCIO. The University of Santo Tomas star, he first played for YCO before moving to Crispa. He has been in every “first” national team (i.e., Olympics or ABC first, the Pesta Sukan, second, etc.) since 1966 when he made the Asiad in Bangkok. In 1967, he was a member of the ABC squad under Caloy Loyzaga and played the hero’s role as the Philippines regained the championship. In 1968, the Mexico City Olympics. In 1969, the ABC in Bangkok, Thailand; in 1970, both the ABC 10^th Year Special in Manila and the Sixth Asian Games in Bangkok; in 1971, the Sixth ABC in Tokyo; and in 1972, the Munich Olympic Games.

 

 

 

            VIRGILIO ABARRIENTOS.  UE spitfire who made up for lack of height with blinding speed and accurate jumpshots. One of the abler reserves of Crispa-Floro, Abarrientos came to his own in the playoff for round honors against Mariwasa in the MICAA Open of 1972 when he led a badly-depleted Crispa five (with Adriano Papa, Jr., Reynaldo Alcantara, Rodolfo Soriano, among those suspended for getting involved in an after-the-game fracas) to force the. Recorders to a best of three playoff (which Mariwasa won).

 

            REYNALDO ALCANTARA.  Also a UE standout before playing for Crispa. He was essentially a backcourt man but scored when the frontliners got muzzled. Made it with Rogelio Melencio, Fortunato Acuña, Ernesto Estrada, Reynaldo Franco, George Lizares, Ramon Lucindo, David Regullano, Renato Reyes, Valeriano Delos Santos, and Rodolfo Soriano as champion team in the first Pesta Sukan; was a member of the 1972 squad which included Joaquin Rojas, Jesse Sullano, Lawrence Mumar, Lucindo, Soriano, Rolando Marcelo, Estrada, Delos Santos, Regullano, Orlando Bauzon and Rudolf Kutch which finished second to South Korea.

 

            RUDOLF KUTCH.  Another UE product, was regarded as potential replacement for Alberto (Big Boy) Reynoso in the post. Made his first national team in 1969 as member of the team to the 5^th Asian Basketball Confederation, repeated in the ABC ’70 and also qualified for the 6^th Asiad in Bangkok; had his fourth stint as a national in the ’72 Pesta Sukan selection. His biggest international accomplishment was checking the fabled Shin Dong Pa of Korea in the 1969 ABC in the first half of play.

 

 

 

            ADRIANO PAPA, JR.  A National University star, he first played for Ysmael Steel in the MICAA, then YCO, before settling with Crispa. Became a national in 1966 as member of the Philippines team to the Fifth Asiad; made the 1967 ABC selection and his first Olympics in Mexico City a year later; returned to form for the 1970 6^th Asiad in Bangkok (after missing the 1969 ABC); made the 1971 ABC and became a two-time Olympian with the Munich meet of 1972.

 

            ERNESTO DE LEON. Pugnacious guard recruited by Virgilio (Baby) Dalupan from the University of the East squad. Steady on the backcourt, he was overshadowed in fame by his teammates but not in performance.

Crispa 6 Scandal: Black Friday for RP Basketball (Sports World, 1973)

Sports World Magazine

July 21, 1973

 

 

            It was a victory that had all the trappings of an old Hollywood script and Cinderella tale.

 

            Here was a team that didn’t even rate a serious look from the experts at the time because it seemed then that it didn’t have what it took to make it all the way to the finals, more so to run away with the title.

 

            And so it went five months ago, the gush of gee whiz prose that was cranked out following Mariwasa’s storybook triumph against the tall odds and a heavily-favored Crispa-Floro ballclub in the best two-of-three finals of the 1973 MICAA All-Filipino basketball series.

 

            Indeed, at that time, in the eyes of both the bleacher fan and the basketball expert, Mariwasa’s victory seemed nothing more than an old story of a gutsy outfit prevailing over the favorite; of a David pulling off an upset over a basketball Goliath.

 

            There was no hint – not even a faint one – that the Mariwasa team, then called the Akai Recorders, might have won not only on account of its own effort to win but probably as a result of the presence in the other team’s linup of players committed to make the breaks turn into Mariwasa’s favor.

 

            Mariwasa, of course, didn’t know it – this unholy alliance among six Crispa players to cut down their usual point output, thus, in effect, loading the deck in Mariwasa’s favor. And so, in so far as the Akais were concerned, theirs was a well-earned, untarnished victory.

 

            Truly, it seemed so and the statistics of the final match underscored the Akais’ mastery almost all the key facets of the game – control of the backboards (34 rebounds against Crispa’s 30), better foul shooting (a 71.42% to Crispa’s 55.55%), less errors (only 11 to Crispa’s 15), and more chances to score (85 field goal attempts to Crispa’s 66).

 

            Mariwasa was down by a point at the half, 38-39, but it forged ahead in the closing minutes on Narciso Bernardo’s clutch shooting to win, 84-80.

 

 

 

            In the first game of the best two-of-three series, Mariwasa was also behind by 10 points, 49-39, but it managed to pull off a close 79-77 victory by consistently pressing while the Crispa lineup was running into a spate of errors and lapsing into a shooting slump.

 

            Understandably, Crispa Coach Baby Dalupan was a sore man inside the Crispa lockers when the title series ended with his favored team a loser in two straight games. In an interview with Enrique Gonzales of the Times Journal, Dalupan blamed “bad officiating” and the way his boys “lost their cool” for the stunning setback.

 

            There was no statement issued by Crispa owner Danny Floro that night.

 

            A few weeks later, however, Danny hinted at a Crispa shakeup in the offing and subsequently stunned the world of local basketball with an announcement that he has decided to drop six Crispa mainstays from the team. The six were Danny Florencio, Adriano Papa, Jr., Rudolf Kutch, Virgilio Abarrientos, Reynaldo Alcantara and Ernesto de Leon.

 

            “Why, that’s almost the whole Crispa lineup!” was the remark that greeted Danny Floro’s announcement.

 

            Almost it was because with the ouster of the six, only four of the ten players used by Dalupan in the title series were left. They were Fortunato Co, Rudy Soriano, Danny Pecache, and Johnny Revilla.

 

            In announcing the shakeup during an interview with Sports World last March, Floro bared his pique at the boys he dropped from the team. “Sobra na! (too much),” he said, referring particularly to Papa’s breach of quarters discipline and Florencio’s refusal to follow orders.

 

            As to the others, Floro said “wala nang disiplina (no more discipline).”

 

            SW knew at this time that there was more than met the eye in the drastic step taken by the usually genial Floro against his six boys. But since he refused to comment on “what really was the reason for the ouster” during the interview, the matter was dropped.

 

            An aide of the Crispa team owner said, however, in an aside that “one day, you’ll know the reason why.”

 

            Finally, last week, four months after SW’s interview with Floro, it broke – the “real reason” why Floro all but dismantled his team following its loss to Mariwasa in the MICAA All-Filipino finals.

 

            In a headline story that it ran, ironically enough on Friday the 13^th, the Times Journal bared how the six players ousted by Floro last summer admitted having thrown the first game of the best two-of-three pennant series for a fee of Php 3,000 each paid by a gambling syndicate.

 

            The players’ admission, the news story said, was contained in a report submitted by the Metrocom Police Investigation Service to Brig. Gen. Alfredo Montoya, Metrocom commander. According to the report – Papa, Florencio, Kutch, Abarrientos, De Leon and Alcantara – owned their participation in the syndicate’s bid to “manipulate” the result of the Mariwasa-Crispa first game in the MICAA finals twice: the first before the MICAA board then before the MPIS.

 

            The MPIS report cited Papa as saying that two days before the game on February 4, an unidentified man gave him the Php 3,000 in his residence. He was asked to contact the other players. In his statement, Papa also reportedly disclosed that “anomalies in bigtime basketball went on even during the time of Carlos Loyzaga and Lauro Mumar.”

 

            Concluding its report, the MPIS said “the gravity of the offense was such that it undermined the faith of the Filipino people in the No. 1 sport in the country.”

 

            Expectedly, the scandal, the first to hit local basketball, touched off a wave of anger and concern among basketball officials and the media. Councilor Lito Puyat, president of the Basketball Association of the Philippines, convened the 21-man BAP board to a meeting to decide on the sanctions that it would take against the erring cagers.

 

            PAAF President Ambrosio Padilla, a former Olympic basketball player, bemoaned the incident. “It is a very sad day for Philippine basketball,” he said, “but the best we can do now is to do everything possible to avoid a repetition of such a case.”

 

            MICAA President Domingo Itchon served noticed that the association intended to take a hard line against the six former MICAA players. “Any penalty is to be imposed on this case should be more severe than a life suspension (from basketball),” Itchon said.

 

 

 

            Acting swiftly to head off the threatening erosion of public confidence in its basketball circuit, the MICAA board slapped a permanent ban on the six erring players and decided to pursue further investigation of other players reported to have committed the same act of dishonesty.

 

            In another move, the MICAA also reminded all the league’s team managers, coaches and players of its rule prohibiting “an official, coach, player, referee, umpire or those connected with the game in some capacity from betting.” Violation of this rule, the MICAA said, will bar the individual concerned from further participation in any game.

 

            The MICAA decision to expand its inquiry into the first scandal ever to hit its popular basketball league apparently stemmed from a disclosure by Capt. Hector Alvarez of the MPIS that “five other Crispa boys” are also involved in the fix.

 

            Capt. Alvarez, who handled the investigation of the scandal, said: “It was established during our investigation of the six Crispa players that five other Crispa boys also received something but no action had been taken against them because our investigation was centered on Papa and his companions.”