Aces reborn under Compton

(MENAFN- Arab News) Records don't lie but more often than not they never really show how those numbers were arrived at.

Close to three weeks and after 23 games of the 40th Philippine Basketball Association's Philippine Cup eliminations Alaska is on top of the heap unscathed after four games and Blackwater Elite is at the bottom winless after the same number of outings.

Four-zero and zero-four those are standings that say who the best and the worst are.

But Alaska is better than being the best at the moment and Blackwater is simply better than what its current record says.

Alaska has beaten the top-tier teams thus far having played and won in two of the best games thus far in the elimination round the first against Talk 'N Text last week and the second against San Miguel Beer on Wednesday night.

The Aces also own the most lopsided win in the tournament a 41-point shellacking of formidable Meralco.

Alaska opened its season with a 20-point bombing of defending champion Purefoods a margin of victory seen by many as a fluke because the Star Hotshots still had Grand Slam-hangover until the Aces responded in a way that silenced their critics.

Blackwater meanwhile despite its maligned roster has earned the respect of the field after taking veteran squads to the limit. The only blackeye in the Elite's first four games is when they lost composure and dropped a 66-80 decision of fellow rookie team KIA Motors in the inaugurals last Oct. 19 at the Philippine Arena in Bocaue Bulacan.

The Elite took Meralco into extra period before bowing gave the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters the fits before losing by seven and had a chance against hulking Barangay Ginebra a few days ago.

Blackwater has so far done justice to its young PBA existence and will learn from all those narrow defeats as it gets older.

It's the same pattern Alaska went through when it started in 1986 and was the league's favorite whipping boy.

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Alaska has had so much success in the PBA.

The winner of 14 total championships counting a Grand Slam in 1996 under Tim Cone the Aces have done everything as silently as they could.

During the last off-season new coach Alex Compton kept fans and media out of their practices and had the Aces participating in very few tune-up games to keep their new look out of sight.

The Compton principle seems very simple when you watch the Aces. Alaska just plays hard on both ends and never shows any quit.

Proof of that is the victory over the Tropang Texters who had control the entire night before Calvin Abueva willed the Aces to rally before making the game-winning floater at the buzzer.

Against the Beermen on Wednesday it was again Abueva who provided all the hustle and fight for the Aces showing great example of work ethic that rubbed off on his teammates the entire game.

Imagine someone who is just 6-foot-1 grabbing 18 rebounds in the game against a San Miguel side that had 6-foot-10 June Mar Fajardo and the high-leaping long-limbed Arwind Santos.

Heck the Beermen had off-guards like Chris Lutz and Marcio Lassiter who are almost four inches taller than Abueva.

Abueva had at least three of his shots smothered in the paint by the San Miguel defense but the former San Sebastian ace never stopped fighting never stopped challenging the Beermen and then shared winning hugs with his teammates after the smoke of the battle cleared.

There's no flair in the way Alaska plays its game. Just good old-fashioned basketball played with a lot of heart.

And most of the time that's the best thing to watch.

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One other thing fuelling the Aces is coach Alex Compton a full-blooded American who was born and raised in the Philippines and is just as Filipino as the Juan dela Cruz next door.

Compton has whipped the Aces into a solid fighting crew and is getting the players to respond which is very critical.

Luigi Trillo who guided the Aces to the Commissioner's Cup championship in 2012 lost his edge reportedly after disagreements with several of the team's stars. Their lack of communication showed in how the Aces played and caused Trillo's departure from the team.

Trillo has gone on to become an assistant coach of Norman Black at Meralco and will be back coaching I bet in the next couple of years.

Back to Compton.

Other coaches in the PBA can learn a thing or two about humility from Compton who never fails to give all the credit to his players after every win and almost always owns up to everything that goes wrong after every loss.

He had more classic quotes on Wednesday night moments after holding San Miguel Beer to just 63 points. Here are some of them:

'Gosh June Mar Fajardo kept me up last night and the night before. Pinuyat niya ako because that's how good he is. I kept thinking of ways how to stop him.'

In that game losing sleep over Fajardo was worth it as Alaska held the reigning MVP to just 10 points.

The game was so defense-oriented that questions revolved around how it was done to which Compton had this answer:

'They say that a team takes the personality of its coach. I don't think that's true because when I was playing I never guarded anyone (successfully) in my life.'

That answer drew laughs and smiles from the men and women covering the beat. Compton was speaking the truth. During his days as a player in the MBA he was a lethal scorer but he could have sugar-coated it just a little just to be able to claim credit for the defense they played against San Miguel Beer.

But that's Compton for you and an attitude like that usually wins championships in the end because players especially the superstars want to play for people like that.