For the Terrafrima Dyip, PBA Season 49 has been a waiting game.
During the 2024 Honda PBA Governors’ Cup, it took until the penultimate game before the Dyip earned their first victory, an 84-72 win over the eventual Governors’ Cup champion TNT Tropang Giga.
It would be their sole win in the 2024 Governors’ Cup, and it was supposed to be a morale booster heading into the 2024-2025 Honda PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
Turns out Terrafirma would top that in the Commissioner’s Cup.
The Dyip would go on a 12-game losing streak following that sole Governor’s Cup victory. Blowouts, blown leads, and blown chances became commonplace during that infamous streak and it would have been reasonable to believe that the outcome would be the same when Terrafirma took on the Tropang Giga. However, the Dyip’s recent history was a better judge.
It felt like it was only a matter of time until TNT would pull away against Terrafirma, but the Dyip stayed close and thanks to Terrafirma’s 74 points in the second and third quarters, they managed to stun everyone, including those who dismissed the Dyip the moment their schedule came out.
That Mark Nonoy was Terrafirma’s best player in the win over the Tropang Giga was fitting given their current narrative of waiting. After selecting Nonoy with the 10th overall pick in the 2024 PBA Draft, the Dyip had to wait for around three months as Nonoy fulfilled his commitment with the MPBL’s Iloilo United Royals. Given how the former UST Growling Tiger and the DLSU Green Archer has gotten better with each opportunity, it’s safe to say the wait was worth it.
A victory like the one Terrafirma earned should be a cause of celebration; you’ve won against a perennial title contender twice this season so the capacity to win is obviously there. However, the problem with the Dyip is not that they can’t win; it seems as if they don’t want to win. From losing games to letting players go, the only constant for Terrafirma has been ineptitude. When the Dyip win, a bevy of losses follow. When a player from Terrafirma starts to play well, his days on the team are numbered. When the outcry is loud, the head coach becomes the scapegoat. And then, the cycle simply repeats itself.
Given the gap between their victories, waiting for a Terrafirma Dyip win may take longer than anticipating the next Dyip player to leave the team. Their two victories over the vaunted TNT Tropang Giga are remarkable in themselves, but why wait for what comes next when you know there’s nothing much that’ll come after?
