Point guard Gelo Alolino led the Bulldogs with 13 points and five rebounds while RR Garcia was the lone star for the Tamaraws with 20 points. Vyn Radovan | FCF

Reigning UAAP most valuable player (MVP) Bobby Ray Parks was his usual aggressive self in crunch time.

In the last two minutes of National University’s game against an erstwhile undefeated foe in Far Eastern University, he twice attacked the basket to absolve his earlier mistake — a five-second inbound violation while his team was down by four.

In the process, he drew two fouls and made three-of-four from the free throw line as his team went up by one — enough to deal the Tamaraws their first loss of the season.

Only that Parks registered a season low seven points, which is a far cry from his imposing career average. No problem, his teammates have been playing good music with him in their five wins so far. Finally, NU is again known as the Bulldogs and no longer the Parks.

“I’m really proud of my teammates and I’m thankful that they’re willing to step up and not leave me alone,” he remarked after the Bulldogs’ upset of the Far Eastern University (FEU) Tamaraws in Wednesday’s resumption of UAAP men’s basketball action at the famed Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Gelo Alolino led the team with 13 points, scoring off hard-earned shots against the vaunted guards from Morayta, while seldom-used forward Glenn Khobuntin added 10 points off feisty attacks to the basket.

Center Emmanuel Mbe also tallied 10 points and 11, including four points to counter RR Garcia’s 10-point scoring spree early in the fourth, which placed the Tamaraws up by, 55-53, after trailing by seven, 43-50, at the end of the third quarter.

MORE: FEU vs NU game photo gallery

Another hero for the Bulldogs is erstwhile reserve guard Maurice Porter who, despite finishing the game with only four points, limited leading MVP contender Terrence Romeo to a season low eight points off a paltry 3-of-16 shooting.

“To beat FEU, we have to assert ourselves in defense. We want [Romeo] to work on his shots and stop him and it’s also good that the boys adjusted their defense when it’s RR’s turn to score,” NU coach Eric Altamirano explained after the game.

“We have groomed Porter as our main guard stopper in our last game versus La Salle and we’ll see in out next games if there will be adjustments in defense, depending on the matchups,” he added.

For his part, FEU head coach Nash Racela accepted the defeat “with open arms” despite in-game complaints on officiating, which included an apparent traveling non-call on Mbe.

“It was my fault because of my commitment to the national team,” Racela, also an assistant coach of Gilas Pilipinas national team, said after the game. “We were out of focus and out of sync because my attention was divided and my commitments were split in two.”

“Rather than look at the officiating, we would like to review the mistakes we made and make the necessary corrections,” he added.

The Bulldogs are currently at solo second with a 5-3 record while the Tamaraws, led by the solo efforts of Garcia who scored 20 points, are still two games ahead of the Bulldogs at 7-1.