MANILA, Philippines – Rabeh Al-Hussaini couldn’t sleep properly. Since the 20-point loss his team suffered on October 4, the worst loss in the UAAP career of his coach, Norman Black, Al-Hussaini was bothered to the point that he was still wide awake at 5 a.m.

The reason was simple: with one game to go against the UE Red Warriors in the finals of Season 72 of the UAAP, he didn’t want his team, the Ateneo Blue Eagles, to be the one sent packing. He didn’t want to be sent home crying, given how this would be the last game of his UAAP career.

October 8 was an overcast day, sprinkled liberally with rain, and on hindsight, the blue drops of water coming forth from the grey sky would serve as a metaphor for the successful Blue Eagles. Despite some bad moments, they would come out from the dark successful, back-to-back championships in hand, their first pair of trophies since 1987 and ’88.

The championship banner the team held up as the blue and white confetti rained down on them that early October evening read “Back to back,” but based on the shirts the players wore during warm-ups, it was clear that this championship was “back to Black.”

Despite his title of “Ateneo de Manila Blue Eagles Head Coach,” Norman Black is an educator first. And going into this season with the bulk of his team intact, he knew that he had to focus on motivating his team to take each game seriously, a philosophy that could be summarized in his now-legendary command to his charges during a time-out in the second round game versus La Salle: “No yabang.”

Thus, the most apt trait to describe this squad was “resilient.” Early in the season they would come out flat, before launching an inspired rally to win the game, like a boxer taking an opponent’s best punch before counter-attacking. And despite two morale-killing losses this season, first to the unheralded UP Fighting Maroons, and then in the Finals to the runner-up UE Red Warriors, Ateneo always bounced back strong, all the way to championship number five.

They wouldn’t have won without the strong efforts of their three graduating seniors. The finals MVP Al-Hussaini showed that last season was not a fluke by owning the painted area. Nonoy Baclao played most of the season with a hand injury, but it never deterred him from protecting his team’s rim. And then there was Jai Reyes, whose uncle was a key player in ’87 and ’88 for this same school, was a captain on the court and a sniper from a far.

But more than the other teams in the league, Ateneo won, not on the back of its stars, but because of its team effort and dedication to defense. Eric Salamat, Ryan Buenafe, Nico Salva, Kirk Long, Eman Monfort, Juami Tiongson, Bacon Austria, Frank Golla, Justin Chua, Chris Sumalinog, Christian de Chavez and Vince Burke, all of them were key cogs in the well-oiled Blue Eagle machine. Take one of them out, and the journey would have probably ended differently.

For the second straight year, the Ateneo Blue Eagles came out on top and soared to the finish. And while he won’t be around to help the team try for three in a row, no doubt, Al-Hussaini is sleeping soundly now.