After winning the inaugural title of the Filsports Basketball Association, the University of the Philippines (UP) Fighting Maroons are taking their act down south as they play a series of tune-up games starting this Friday at the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) gym in Basak, Pardo.
The Maroons appear to be on the upswing this year and showed just that as they beat the top-seeded Pampanga Foton Tornadoes, 78-68, in the finals of the FBA last week.
UP hopes that the victory is a sign of things to come for the long-suffering Maroons, who at one point, lost 27 straight games in a span of two years in the UAAP.
Though they broke that horrendous losing streak with a victory over the equally inept Adamson Falcons last season, it ended up being their only victory in 14 games.
Eager to sharpen their skills, the Maroons will travel to Cebu and take on the USJ-R Jaguars on Friday evening before matching wits with the reigning Cebu champions Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras at the Aznar Coliseum on Saturday night. They are also set to compete against the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) runners-up University of San Carlos Warriors in back-to-back games on the 15th and 16th.
One-time Cesafi juniors MVP and former Philippine Youth Team member Paul Desiderio, who plays for UP, expressed his excitement in coming back to the place he calls home.
“Excited nako balik duwa Cebu. Murag three years na wa ko ka duwa balik sa Cebu,” said the Liloan-native, who led the upstart University of the Visayas Baby Lancers to the Cesafi title back in 2011.
Desiderio will be joined on the squad by three other Cesafi standouts in last year’s Cesafi juniors MVP, Janjan Jaboneta, Pio Longa and Henry Asilum – incidentally all from the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu program.