Last Thursday afternoon, just minutes after De La Salle failed to qualify for the Final 4 of the 72nd University Athletic Association of the Philippines for the first time since the format was introduced in 1994, sportswriters cornered Green Archers head coach Franz Pumaren for his assessment of his team's atrocious performance this season.

Pumaren was quoted as saying, "I guess the guys who were supposed to shepherd this team failed to guide the young ones."

The concurrent three-term Quezon City councilor hit the nail right on the head.

The team's veterans (their names don't matter now) failed terribly in the leadership test, playing nonchalantly – especially during the second round – as if there's always a tomorrow (instead of there being no tomorrow) to settle the score with the opposition.

To each its own, their attitude seemingly was. I could be mistaken but that was how this Hoopster felt from his armchair seat.

It was bad enough that the Green Archers did not have a go-to guy (a dominant, reliable scorer for the first time since Pumaren took over the reins in 1998. Gone were the days when La Salle would have a dependable shooter like Renren Ritualo, Mike Cortez, Macmac Cardona, Joseph Yeo and JV Casio or a dominant inside force such as Don Allado and Rico Maierhofer.

There were no such players in the 2009 Archers unit.

Worse, no singular veteran wanted to accept the leadership mantle, unwilling by anyone to assume the extra load of responsibility insofar as guiding the young ones (freshmen and sophomores) on the team.

The young ‘uns proved to be unprepared when called upon. Then again, it was not their fault, as singer Yusaf Islam (the former Cat Stevens) declared in his "Father and Son" ditty. Aggressive and eager to contribute as they were, the minutes were few and far between for them to do something substantial.

The times they were on the floor, all they wanted to do was to shoot (or pass) in a hurry. The lack of confidence was evident in their helter-skelter performances.

In fairness, rookie Samuel Marata showed flashes of brilliance with his pair of threes in the final minute of the second-round encounter against Far Eastern U that forced a five-minute extension. Still, the Green Archers dropped the overtime game by two points when Marata
misfired on a jumper at the buzzer.

Another frosh, tree-like Yutien Andrada, has the potential to become an outstanding defensive specialist but he is still miles away from being another Maierhofer with his limited offensive skills.

Simply put, this year’s De La Salle squad was a horrible mixture of underachieving veterans and inadequate rookies. It was a recipe for disaster.

And a disaster it turned out to be.

Because of their lackluster recruiting job during the summer, most preseason prognosticators penciled in the rookie-laden Archers at No. 5 or No. 6. They got it all right but no one really could have foretold that Pumaren’s troops would play this bad and lose so-called “winnable” games against perennial patsies Adamson University (61-55), University of the Philippines (83-78) and National University (63-61) in the second round.

La Salle got off to an anemic 0-2 start. Though they won their next four games, the Archers’ season went into a tailspin following the first of two losses to defending champion and arch nemesis Ateneo de Manila University (the Eagles have beaten the Archers six straight times over two seasons) to end the first-round phase (4-3). The first defeat to ADMU (in overtime) spurred a five-game losing streak that eventually sent the Archers to their first losing finish since joining the UAAP from the NCAA in 1986.

La Salle twice whipped No. 4 seed University of Santo Tomas (6-8, 2-5 in the second round) but was just 1-6 in the second round (tying the Taft Avenue-based school with NU in last place) for an overall 5-9 record.

If my memory serves me right, this marks the first time that one school swept its two-game series with the No. 4 seed and yet failed to force a playoff for that spot. That’s because the Green Archers posted three losing streaks of at least two games (including setbacks in their final two contests). Significantly, their last three losses (vs. UE, 66-64; FEU, 71-69; and NU, 63-61) were all decided by two points.

De La Salle and Adamson University owned identical 5-9 win-loss slates but the Falcons (who went 4-3 in the second round) gained fifth place on a point-differential tiebreaker. DLSU beat AdU by a point (64-63 in OT) in the first round but Adu came back to win by six (61-55) in the second.

With its disappointing sixth-place performance in the UAAP, La Salle may have to qualify through the back door to defend their title in the Philippine Collegiate Champions League in November.

Then again, the Green Archers may just skip the tournament and ride off to the sunset this year without even saying farewell to Pumaren, who is expected to seek a national position in next year’s general elections.

And for whatever its worth, I see the Blue Eagles going all the way and duplicating their back-to-back UAAP title runs in 1987 and 1988. Hotshot Chris Tiu, a longtime fixture in Ateneo basketball, has graduated but this season and last really belongs to Rabeh Al-Hussaini.