For the first time in a decade, the San Miguel Beermen will be heading home early.
A 115-97 loss to the TNT Tropang Giga brought the Beermen to 5-7 and put their 2024-2025 Honda PBA Commissioner’s Cup campaign to an abrupt end. Call it a coincidence, but the Beermen also had seven losses in the 2015 PLDT Home TelPad-PBA Commissioner’s Cup, which was the last time they missed the postseason.

For a team that is perenially championship or bust, this is a failure of grand proportions. SMB has the best player in the league in June Mar Fajardo and boasts a backcourt that includes the PBA leader in 3-pointers made all time in Marcio Lassiter, a Best Player of the Conference candidate in CJ Perez, and the talented Juami Tiongson, among others.
The mid-conference coaching change from Jorge Gallent to Leo Austria may have been a factor to San Miguel’s uneven campaign. The Beermen tried to balance their offense by becoming a little bit more backcourt-centric, and in Gallent’s short tenure, SMB did win it all during the 2023-2024 PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
However, the backcourt faced some struggles in other conferences, especially as some succumbed to injuries and bouts of inconsistency. Bringing Austria back to a more active role was supposed to address these issues, but it may take longer than just a few games.
Now, Austria will have more time to reintroduce his system and allow the likes of Tiongson and Andres Cahilig to acclimate themselves more to what the nine-time PBA champion wants to run. Even the core and other holdovers of San Miguel may need time to rest and readjust, so perhaps the early exit could be a blessing in disguise.
The Beermen have yet to win a conference title in PBA Season 49, a low for their lofty standards, and it won’t be surprising if they pull of another trade for one of the stars of the Commissioner’s Cup playoffs. Some of their bench players could easily start for at least a handful of other teams, but the allure of a title and the perks of being part of SMB may be too tough to give up. After all, the roster was catered more to Gallent’s preferences and Austria may want to shore up the frontcourt to allow Fajardo to continue to age like fine wine.
Going forward, it’s more likely than not that the San Miguel Beermen will be back in the postseason of the next conference, which is the season-ending 2025 PBA Philippine Cup. They’re too good not to be part of the playoffs and they’re not one to stay put on the sidelines. Call it a minor setback for them then, since we’re bound to see a major comeback from the PBA’s winningest franchise.
