MANILA, Philippines – Dreams come in different forms.
For Ateneo’s Paolo Medina, a former student-manager for the UAAP Season 85 men’s basketball champion Blue Eagles, his own hoop dreams came true on a different stage.
Medina triumphed in the NBA 2K tournament after outlasting De La Salle University’s Kegan Yap, 2-1, in the finals of the UAAP’s inaugural esports event in front of a pro-Blue Eagles crowd at the Doreen Fernandez Black Box, Areté Ateneo.
“To be the first champion, I am very blessed. I feel I made a mark that will forever be there,” said Medina after the victory that made him the collegiate league’s first esports title holder.
Medina was on the sidelines during the Blue Eagles’ last UAAP men’s basketball title in 2022, when they defeated the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons in a best-of-three finals series.
Just like in Ateneo’s Season 85 romp, Medina iced the championship in a title-clinching Game 3, where he picked the Oklahoma City Thunder, taking down Yap’s Los Angeles Lakers, 74-63, in a lopsided affair right from the get-go.
The 22-year-old BS Information Technology student took Game 1 in the finals series, using the San Antonio Spurs to escape Yap’s Chicago Bulls in a nail-biter, 77-75.
However, Ateneo’s bet lost in Game 2, 93-89, after Yap turned to the Los Angeles Clippers to thump on the Sacramento Kings.
A crowd darling throughout the tournament, Medina went on a frenzied celebration with what seemed to be an all-Ateneo audience after Game 3’s final buzzer.
“It wasn’t a cakewalk. It wasn’t an easy path to the finals,” Medina recalled, as he had to claw from being the second seed in Pool A, which set him up for a 2-0 sweep of the University of Santo Tomas bet Daemiel Argame in the semifinals.
Medina finished the group stage with two losses in seven games, which he admitted to having knocked his confidence early in the tournament.
“Not gonna lie, coming into the tournament, I felt very confident. But then, on the first day of the group stage, I lost my game against UST, and then later that same day, I lost against UP,” he said.
Getting candid about their championship path, Ateneo head coach Nite Alparas reaffirmed his trust in his ward.
“I was so confident with Medina since last February when I discovered him,” Alparas said. “I saw his growth and development as a player…He tried new things and was never afraid to make mistakes.”
Meanwhile, Erix Delos Reyes defeated fellow UST bet Argame, 2-0, to bag the bronze medal for the tournament. – Rappler.com