PBA 1977 Most Valuable Player - Alfredo “Freddie” Hubalde

PBA 1977 Most Valuable Player - Alfredo “Freddie” Hubalde

Season Statistics:

Games Played : 67
Points Average : 17.28
Assists Total : 188
Rebounds Average : 3.2
Blocks Total : 40
Steals Total : 51

Source : PBA Archives Collections

NOW COMES HUBALDE, "MVP"

For almost five years of his playing career, it had seemed as if Freddie Hubalde, like the effervescent Fortunato Co a former Mapua Tech Cardinal and NCAA MVP, was destined to play in somebody's shadow or walk in somebody's shoes. In his amateur years as a Cardinal, there was Atoy Co to contend with in his bid to sparkle. And it wasn't until after Co had left Mapua after winning the NCAA league's "most valuable player" award in his last season with the Cards that Hubalde, a chunky sixfoot-one Manila boy with the build of well-fed lumberjack, finally came into his own as "King Cardinal." The year was 1975 and Hubalde did it simply by proving his worth as a worthy replacement for Co, who had jumped off to Crispa after Mapua, and as Co had done before he left, emerging as the most dominant figure in the NCAA basketball scene. Picking up where Co left off and sparkling on his own, Hubalde matched his predecessor's illustrious last year record in the NCAA when like Co, he also ran away with MVP award in the collegiate circuit in his last season with the Cardinals. From Mapua, Hubalde moved on to Crispa but there he found out that with Co around and more, William (Bogs) Adornado, the celebrated forward of the Redmanizers, he would not have enough room to maneuver himself into a position of prominence in the Crispa line-up. Not that he didn't try every thing Coach Baby Dalupan sent him in. But then this was not often enough, and it couldn't be otherwise with Adornado around, and Hubalde played out his first season with the Redmanizers stuck as just another star hopeful in Crispa's star-studded line-up, his dreams of overnight stardom in the big leagues stunted. Hubalde of course was far from a big flop in his first time up in bigtime basketball. But in all the games where he was fielded, he struck the experts as a kid who still had a long way to go before he could approximate the performances of his old Mapua buddy, Atoy Co, or Crispa superstar Adornado. As the coach of an opposing team said when asked to analyze Hubalde's early games in the big league: "He has the potential but he'll have to break out of his old NCAA habits." And what were these "habits"? "Well, for one," said the coach, "He'll have to learn to live with the fact that in the bigtime, he just can't overpower everyone. Not with the kind of a game he has, all power, no technique." Can he ever be another Co? "No way," said the man, "but perhaps another Adornado, you know, the kind of a guy who can be counted to come through in the clutch. The The guy who could take charge when Atoy runs cold." True enough it was in the role of "the new Adonardo" that Hubalde now sporting a beard and looking as mean as a hungry forward could ever get, finally came into his own as a Redmanizer of note, as Crispa's take-charge guy, in the Redmanizers' successful title campaign in the first PBA conference for 1977. Hubalde didn't exactly click as a sub for an injured Adornado the first time he moved in from the wings to take Bogs' coveted spot in the team, but in the last PBA series, which Crispa won with a 3-1 count against Mariwasa in the playoffs and which saw Hubalde emerge as SWM's choice for MVP, Hubalde proved himself a key man in the Redmanizers' high-powered game. In the qualifying round, Hubalde turned out to be Crispa's third most dangerous man with the irons as he scored 272 points in 14 games for a 19.42 average for the stretch. The other two Crispa hotshots were Co who had 348 points and a 27.76 average and Rudy Soriano whose 14-game output of 292 gave him a scoring average of 20.85. In the semifinals, however, it was Hubalde who glittered the most as he took over the scoring chores from an Atoy Co who had come to play off and on to spark Crispa's 7-0 sweep of its round of four assignments. In the pennant playoffs against the Panthers, Hubalde was Co's big back-up man in the Redmanizers' near sweep of the playoffs. Undoubtedly, the PBA's first conference for 1977 had marked a turning point in Hubalde's career. He had turned in his best performance ever in the bigtime and no less than his coach, Baby Dalupan, attests to this. Asked about Hubalde before the series ended, Dalupan said: "He (Hubalde) definitely is playing one of his finest seasons." As to Hubalde's coming into his own as "the new Adornado" of the Redmanizers, Coach Dalupan was just as categorical. "Yes," he said, "Hubalde is finally fitting into Adornado's old role." -P.N.A.