Jamal Diaz had 12 minutes to make his mark on Monday’s game, and he needed roughly one of them. The rookie guard out of University of the East drilled back-to-back three-pointers in the final minute to lift the Mapua Cardinals past the San Beda Red Lions, 55-54, delivering the Cardinals their first win of the NCAA Season 102 Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan City.
Trailing by five with 52.6 seconds left, Diaz buried a triple to cut the gap to 54-52. He wasn’t done. With 12.4 seconds remaining, he calmly drained another from downtown to put Mapua ahead for good, 55-54. San Beda had one last chance through Jimmy Reyes, whose open look from deep rimmed out as the buzzer sounded, sealing the Cardinals’ win.
Diaz Makes His Minutes Count for Mapua
Diaz finished with 8 points, 6 of them scored in that final minute alone, to go with 5 rebounds in just 12 minutes of action. “Lakas lang din ng loob ko na tinira ko ‘yun. Pero wala, ‘yun na ‘yun, shumoot lang. Kaya, swerte lang din talaga po,” he said of the go-ahead shot. “Pinaghirapan ko ‘tong mga ‘to kaya pumasok ‘yong mga tira ko. Sana magtuloy-tuloy na ‘yong panalo namin. Galing kami sa baba. Ang sarap ng feeling na umangat ulit ang kumpiyansa namin.”
The win closes out the first round of group play with Mapua at 1-3 in Group A, while San Beda heads into the crossover round at 2-2.
The game swung several times before Diaz’s finish. Mapua opened the second quarter with a 4-0 run, only for San Beda to respond by outscoring the Cardinals 17-2 the rest of the period, taking a 26-23 lead into halftime. The Red Lions carried that momentum into the third, opening with a 10-2 run fueled by RC Calimag’s hot shooting to build their biggest lead of the game at 36-25.
Cardinals Lean on the Three-Ball
Mapua answered in the fourth. The Cardinals caught fire from three, knocking down four triples in the first 3:35 of the period to erase San Beda’s nine-point cushion and pull within one, 43-42, with 6:25 remaining. That set the stage for Diaz’s closing act—one that head coach Chito Victolero had all but demanded at halftime.
“In the last two minutes, he was in the end game because of his ‘kapal ng mukha.’ Noong halftime, pinagalitan ko siya, sabi ko sa kanya, ‘Bakit ka nandiyan?'” Victolero said. “That’s why binigyan ko siya ng chance in the second half kasi alam kong ma-cha-challenge siya doon sa akin.”
Cyrus Cuenco led all scorers with 19 points and four rebounds, the Cardinals’ lone double-digit scorer besides Diaz’s late burst. Calimag paced San Beda with 18 points on an efficient 7-for-8 clip, while Laurence Hawkins and Sean Torculas added 13 and 10, respectively, in the loss.
Mapua faces Arellano on Thursday, October 1, at 3:00 p.m., while San Beda opens the crossover round against San Sebastian on Friday, October 2, at 5:00 p.m. Both games are set for the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan City.
