Andy..Andy..Andy..

Why did it have to be Andy?...

Of course, you might have heard by now about probably the biggest news of the UAAP season 72. Andy Barroca quits the FEU basketball varsity team due to the allegations hurled at him. These accusations were based on his sub-par performances on the last 2 elimination games where he averaged 7.5 PPG and 3.5 TOPG and shot 33.33% from the field far from his season averages of 12.71 PPG, 2.57 TOPG and 44.58% FG. This was evident in the ADMU – FEU game last 9/12/2009 where he managed to score only 8 points. Apparently some of his teammates asked Coach Glen Capacio to take Andy out of the game because they were suspecting that he wasn’t playing to his abilities but another story says that only the team officials are accusing him and his agent said that his teammates do not believe the allegations threw against him. Personally, I don’t believe that Andy threw the ADMU game or any other games but I’ll admit it that my opinion is biased because I love Andy Barroca to death and I truly believe he will be a key part of Smart-Gilas’ campaign for 2012 Olympics. Plus it helps that he has an identical name with a beautiful girl. Now let’s try to evaluate whether or not Andy played to his ability in that ADMU game. In their game against ADMU, Coach Glen decided to tinker his starting lineup by placing Andy back at the point and putting Sanga at the 2 spot. The result? Andy scores all of his 8 points on that game courtesy of 4 made shots from the field against the lowly defense of Jai Reyes. A common denominator among all his 4 field goals, the play was set for him. Andy is the kind of player that needs to dominate the ball to be successful at the offensive end. As Rick Olivares said, Andy was so successful with Smart – Gilas and Oracle because he was given the ball and control of the offense. Of course this year in the UAAP, the point guard chores have been handed over to RR Garica and Andy had to slide to the 2 spot for the most part of the season. This means that he’ll have less control of the offense. Remember when Steve Francis played the 2 spot because Orlando wanted to give a young Jameer Nelson the break that he needed? Steve Francis struggled and it marked the start of the downfall of his career. Players are going to struggle if you won’t play them at the right position and if you’re not going to give them the role that is suitable for their talent (In this case Andy’s a scorer). But I don’t think you can blame Coach Glen on playing RR and Andy in the same backcourt. RR’s a heck of a player and he probably needs the ball more than Andy since Andy’s a better shooter and it makes sense to put a scorer on the shooting guard position.

Andy did commit a couple of mistakes in that game. He missed 2 FTs at the end of the 1^st half but even Steve Nash can miss 2 straight FTs. Now let’s move on to the 4^th quarter. Andy sort of took a back seat in their offense and was contented on just setting up the play and I guess he had good reason to do so since guys like Sanga and Ramos were on fire. Losing the 18 point lead wasn’t his entire fault but he did play a part. A play called for Andy to post up against Jai. He backed down against Jai and took a turnaround J. He missed the shot but it didn’t really matter because as how Mico Halili would put it “He was caught dancing with wrong pairs of shoes”. He reacted a little bit against the call but didn’t show much emotion while arguing against the referee but I don’t think he’s really an emotional player. He’s going to talk with the referees but he’s not a Sheed. The second play called for him was a curl with Reil setting up the screen for him. He was double –teamed but he still forced the shot against the defense of a Nonoy Baclao. This was clearly a bad decision on his part and he should’ve made the pass to a wide open Cervantes. Was this intentional? Maybe. Maybe not. A lot of players do force their shots not just Andy. He also committed 2 fouls that led to 4 FT attempts. One foul had him going for a steal. He had a clear chance to get the ball but shouldn’t have he just back off especially knowing that they were already in the penalty? The other foul was a silly frustration foul. A friend of mine said, “That’s why it’s called a frustration foul, he was frustrated”. He looked a little lax after the call but like I said he’s not really known to be an emotional player.

Based on my love for Andy and examining the game against ADMU, I’ll have to conclude that FEU made a mistake of accusing Andy of game-fixing and this might come back to bite them at their asses especially now that UE won last 9/19. Can’t the guy just have a bad game? He hasn’t been known to dominate in the UAAP despite his talent and besides this guy has been playing non-stop and maybe the guy’s just burned out. How come JR Cawaling (5.5 PPG and 4.5 TOPG in their last 2 elimination games plus a couple of stupid fancy pass attempts) or DLSU veterans (Barua, Mangahas, Malabes) are not accused of game fixing? There are always 2 sides of a story and maybe Barroca feared for his life and didn’t want to end up like Barracael. Throwing a simple basketball game is easier than being shot. Maybe a patron of ADMU gave him 20M to allow ADMU have an easier route to back-to-back championships and money does talk especially for a guy that comes from a poor family like Andy. Maybe he just had a bad game. I highly doubt that we’ll ever get the chance to know what really happened but I guess FEU did the right thing of releasing Barroca now that the mess has been made public because I can’t see Andy being comfortable playing again for FEU. A friend told me if Andy continues to play, he’s going to be cautious about every turnover and missed shot. At least, Noli still wants Andy to be the main man of Smart-Gilas despite the controversies.

Here’s a blog post coming from someone that has the connections to the FEU team and here is here official statement of FEU regarding the issue. (But you better have loud speakers to hear their crappy answers) Of course, Rick doesn’t believe Andy is guilty of the allegations and he’s got a lot of reasons to believe so but as jaemark said, he’s been known to be close to SBP guys and he might just be protecting Barroca especially now that Andy is already with Smart – Gilas.