Red Lions capture 17th NCAA crown

The San Beda Red Lions completed a repeat of their ‘three-peat’ after blasting blood rivals, the Letran Knights, 67-39, to win their 17th championship yesterday in the deciding Game Three of the 88th NCAA men’s basketball Finals at the packed Smart-Araneta Coliseum.

With more than 18,000 fans watching, the Red Lions came out with more focus and hunger as they clobbered the Knights to submission from the opening tip to the final buzzer.

The title was San Beda’s 17th, breaking a with the Knights in becoming the winningest team in league history. It was also their sixth crown in seven years and their second “three-peat” in 10 years following the school’s reign from 2006-2008 helmed by the triumvirate of Sam Ekwe, Pong Escobal and Yousef Al-Jamal.

But it was how they captured the title that stood out as they held the Knights’ offense to just 39 points, the lowest score in league finals history since San Beda managed 50 points against the Philippine Christian University way back in 2006. A late basket by Letran allowed them to avoid tying the season-low 37-point output of Jose Rizal University which happened incidentally against San Beda in their Aug.  4 match-up.

Senior guard, Anjo Caram, finished his collegiate career in style by scoring 17 points, nine coming in the first half which helped propel the Red Lions to a, 34-17 halftime lead. Baser “The Hammer” Amer added 14 points and was later named as the Finals MVP.

Letran showed some fight early in the third period as they crawled to within 11, 34-23, but fell silent as they scored just two more points while allowing San Beda to score 16 and stared at a huge 25-point deficit, 50-25, at the start of the final canto. /correspondent Jonas Panerio