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The Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles are champions of the UAAP basketball wars once again.
This after the Blue Eagles dealt the University of the East (UE) Red Warriors a decisive 71-58 defeat in the winner-take-all Game 3 of the best-of-three Finals series yesterday at the packed Araneta Coliseum.
Senior center Rabeh Al-Hussaini may have lost out on the MVP award in the regular season but he made up for it by capturing the Finals MVP trophy as he posted a monstrous performance of 21 points and 14 rebounds to power the Blue Eagles to back-to-back titles, a feat Ateneo has not accomplished since the 1987-88 season.
Ateneo took the game into their own hands in the second period as they cranked up their defense and held the usually high-powered Red Warriors offense without a point for more than five minutes.
In that stretch, they let go of 12 unanswered points that was capped off by an acrobatic lay-up by point guard Jai Reyes and erected a 40-25 lead at the end of the first half.
Reyes continued his onslaught in the third canto as he canned back-to-back three-point shots to push the lead up to 17, 48-31.
UE sliced the lead back to 11, 37-48, after baskets from Elmer Espiritu and Paul Lee.
Al-Husseini scored on a jumper and a breakaway slam dunk that was followed up by another trifecta by Reyes that gave Ateneo a huge 57-41 lead heading into the final period.
The lead eventually reached a high of 20 at the 4:10 mark after another basket by Al-Hussaini, which signaled the end of UE?s gallant run.
