THRUST INTO a position he had not been in before with the San Miguel Beermen, guard Terrence Romeo has seen his efforts to adapt to the situation he is in pay off, with windfalls in his basketball career pouring.
Joined the Beermen at the start of the ongoing season after a brief stop with the TNT KaTropa, who acquired him from the GlobalPort Batang Pier (now Northport), where he played in his first four years in the league, Mr. Romeo has been made to adjust his game and seemingly is not bothered by it.
While with GlobalPort, and to an extent with the KaTropa, he was among the top men, if not the alpha player, with San Miguel the former Far Eastern University star had to recalibrate his game and take a back seat to his more established teammates.
And for such “sacrifice,” Mr. Romeo has been accordingly rewarded.
Since joining the Beermen, he has won back-to-back PBA titles, punctuated by a first-ever finals most valuable player award in the recently concluded PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
And the thing about his finals MVP, he achieved it while coming off the bench.
“I’m just blessed this happened to me. Anyone of us could have won this award. But on my end, team success took precedent over me being the number one guy. That was my mindset,” said Mr. Romeo, in the vernacular, after they completed their conquest of TNT in Game Six of their best-of-seven finals series on Aug. 16.
“It’s like I don’t have to be the top guy all the time with this team. The most important thing is we win as a team,” he added.
In six games in the Commissioner’s Cup finals, Mr. Romeo, 27, averaged 14.8 points, 4.3 assists and 2.3 rebounds off the bench.
His best game of the series came in Game Two where he scored a series-high 29 points, going 6-of-8 from beyond the arc, to help the Beermen to a come-from-behind 127-125 victory in extra time. The victory pushed San Miguel to level the series at one game apiece.
Mr. Romeo capped his good finals performance with a steady stat line of 10 points, seven assists and three rebounds in their 102-90 clincher in Game Six.
Next for the team is taking a shot at a rare league grand slam when the season-ending PBA Governors’ Cup rolls off next month.
The San Miguel guard said they like their chances of being able to accomplish it provided they keep their focus and their goals fixed.
He said the early matches of the Governors’ Cup will be vital for them as they would set the tone for the team in the tournament.
From his end, Mr. Romeo said he would try his best to continue delivering whatever is asked of him by the team and in whatever role it might be.
“The team is above all of us. Even June Mar Fajardo, who arguably is the best player in the league, is so unselfish. He never demands that everything should revolve around him. He just wants to win. We want to win as a team,” Mr. Romeo said. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
