UAAP spices up Season 85 basketball by adding coach’s challenge

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

The upcoming University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Season 85 men and women’s tertiary basketball will be introduced to a new luxury mechanic that can make things more interesting.

According to basketball commissioner Dickie Bachmann, the upcoming Season 85 will be bringing in the coach’s challenge system.

Popularized overseas and also practiced in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the coach’s challenge brought a different dimension to the game and can even turn the tables with one successful call.

Both competing teams will be rewarded with one coach’s challenge each for the rest of the game and will immediately be burnt regardless if the decision is correct or not.

Since UAAP patterned most of its rules from the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), Bachmann and the rest of the committee thought that adding the coach’s challenge will be an innovation for the league.

“Basically, it’s part of the new FIBA rules and UAAP is 100 percent FIBA rules. So we added the challenge,” said Bachmann.

The UAAP also made it clear that the coach’s challenge will be applied to both the men’s and women’s categories.

“Especially for women’s malaking advantage for us especially on close games so maganda ‘yun na dinagdag ‘yung coaches challenge,” said UST Growling Tigresses coach Haydee Ong.

This is also the first time that a coach’s challenge will be incorporated in the UAAP and is also yet to be implemented in the pro ranks especially the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

Several years ago, basketball experts and analysts already expressed their thoughts that the PBA should adapt the coach’s challenge to bring more fairness into the game.

However, up until now, commissioner Willie Marcial and the rest of the PBA board are yet to respond to the possible use of such a mechanic.