By MARK REY MONTEJO
After squandering a 21-point lead that resulted in another painful defeat, University of the East head coach Chris Gavina went ballistic against the referees.
“First of all, I want to say to these three referees, never f*cking ref again in any of our games, because they took… It was a complete disservice for the outcome of this game,” said a furious Gavina as UE absorbed a 110-111 overtime loss to the La Salle Archers on Wednesday.
“And the beauty of the game because you’ll call an unsportsmanlike foul on one of our best players… get the f*ck outta here,” he added.
Gavina was referring to the play where Wello Lingolingo was slapped a foul for intentionally landing on Kean Baclaan’s right knee at 4:20 mark of the fourth quarter, resulting in the latter being stretchered out of the game.
And it obviously, added to La Salle’s woes, who recently missed the service of Mason Amos due to a medial collateral ligament (MCL) tear.
Lingolingo was eventually got ejected with an unsportsmanlike foul (category 2) as he already committed a technical after the official determined he was faking a foul. At that moment, the 6-foot-1 arsenal had scored 24.
And UE actually went ahead from there, carrying an 89-84 cushion before the Taft-based squad recovered and ultimately took the momentum away in the extra period.
“We talked about the outcome and the beauty of these games and the players, but what’s happening? There’s three idiots on the f*cking floor,” Gavina continued.
“And they got nothing, even to explain to me. What, you’re not giving us calls because we’re not in the top four teams?” he added.
The fiery mentor was also looking for further explanations with regard to the play as well wanting the referees to be held accountable.
Last weekend, Ateneo chief tactician Tab Baldwin also aired his frustrations, but never mentioned any names yet he coined it as “third team.”
Despite his wrath on the match, the 46-year-old coach shared some love as he hopes for a fast recovery of Baclaan, whose condition is undetermined so far.
“Prayers out to Kean, hopefully, nothing serious happened,” said Gavina.
UE eyes to conclude its first-round task strong and break its six-game losing streak when it clashes with Far Eastern University this Sunday, Oct. 19, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“Silver lining like I told my team is we’re knocking out the door… I told them if we can go toe-to-toe with a UAAP finalist and a champion, we can do that with anybody,” said Gavina. “That’s what we got to carry with us. Yes, there’s pain in there, we got to go through this… I’m hoping to inspire the younger players to start contributing,” he added.
