On September 8, 1987, the Great Taste Coffeemakers had regain its status as the best team in the PBA All-Filipino Conference by winning its third All-Filipino title in four years. The celebration of their 5th overall crown that night turn out to be the last time the ballclub would wear the fabled orange jersey that once won them four straight championships. The company was set to promote a new product and the team will switch from Coffee to a Milk brand which started with the special tournament called PBA/IBA Cup.
Great Taste as the Milkmasters lasted for three conferences beginning the 1987 Reinforced Conference til the 1988 All-Filipino and each time, the team finishes 5th place and although they made it to the semifinal round, the Milkmasters were always out of the running from the finals race and never come close to dislodge the 4th place team in the standings to be able to play in the series for third place. The combined record for three conferences was a mediocre 21-win, 35-loss, compared to the first two conferences of the 1987 PBA season where the Coffeemakers had a total of 29-13 won-loss record and made it to the finals both times.
The Milkmasters’ misfortune in the 1987 Third Conference was the absence of their top scorer Ricardo Brown due to an injury, the 1985 MVP winner and the previous season’s runner-up for the MVP award have appeared in only two games during the first round of eliminations, Brown scored 15 points in their first win in four starts, a 143-124 victory over Tanduay on October 15, and scored only six in their 115-129 loss to Hills Bros. three nights later where Coffee Kings import Jose Slaughter broke the previous record for most three-point shots by hitting 14 triples and finish the game with 79 points. Brown never got a chance to play alongside their new import Darryl “Choo” Kennedy as he sit out for the rest of the year and there seems to be no available photo of the Quick Brown Fox wearing the Milkmasters’ blue and white/yellow jersey. Their first import Jeff Taylor was lucky to play up to the end of the first round of eliminations as he could have been release already after the Milkmasters absorbed their third setback. Dwight Moody, who teamed with Dexter Shouse (on loan from Shell) for the Milkmasters in the PBA/IBA Cup was unwanted and never considered in the Third Conference.
Great Taste will began a new era in the 1988 PBA season without the face of the franchise for the past five seasons – Ricardo Brown, as he transferred to San Miguel Beer. An early blow for the Milkmasters in the Open Conference was when their original choice for an import, Charles Davis, a NBA veteran who might have make a difference, was measured to be over the height limit of 6″6′. Davis can only watch as a spectator when the Milkmasters had a smashing 132-113 opening day win over Shell. Davis’ replacement, Kenny Fields, debut in the Milkmasters’ third outing against Purefoods. After the first round of the semifinals, Great Taste was just three games behind the two league-leading teams San Miguel and Purefoods when Fields suddenly left and abandoned the team with still four games left in their schedule, therefore, the Milkmasters played six of their 18 games in the First Conference without an import. Great Taste had an almost identical campaign in the Open Conference and last year’s third conference, they won their last game in the eliminations against the hot-streaking Ginebra and stop their winning run to finish at 4-6, they lost to first finalist San Miguel Beer in their last game in the semifinals by a rout and ended up with 6-12 won-loss slate.
Despite being the defending champions in the All-Filipino, Great Taste wasn’t rated highly by experts. The Milkmasters started out unbeaten with four straight wins, but losses after one game or another, notwithstanding Abe King’s return to the lineup and playing his first game of the season, the Milkmasters went down again at the bottom end of the five-team semifinals, disaster struck when point guard Bernie Fabiosa dislocated his shoulder in their 113-115 loss to Anejo Rum 65 with one week to go before the start of the semifinal round. On September 1, 1988, the ballclub played its last game as the Great Taste Milkmasters and just how unlucky they can get against the San Miguel Beermen, the team they haven’t beaten yet in seven meetings so far in the season, the Milkmasters had the game won in regulation, what just needs to be done is for Sonny Cabatu to sink at least one of the two free throws with no time left and the score tied at 126, but Cabatu missed both charities, sending the game into overtime. The Beermen were only protecting a two-point lead with few seconds remaining in the extension period when coach Baby Dalupan told his players during the timeout to take a gamble on a three-point shot, win or lose. The Milkmasters lost by one point in the end, 137-138.
Thankfully to Allan Caidic’s Youtube channel, three of my choices among the Milkmasters’ memorable wins had a full game video that can now be watch by PBA fans, Pido Jarencio’s buzzer-beating shot in their 102-100 win over Purefoods where they spoiled the debut of no less than the Hotdogs’ prized forward Alvin Patrimonio. The Triggerman’s 49 points, highlighted by his 9 triples, in their masterful 143-114 win over Alaska, and the November 24, 1987 semifinals upset victory over Ginebra, 119-107, which deprive the Gins of having a better chance of securing the second finals berth.
The Gokongwei franchise return to the milk product three years later, this time as Tivoli Full Cream Milk in the second and third conference of the 1991 season and they were once again left behind in the semifinals and placed fifth in both conferences. All of these fifth place finishes by the Milkmasters came before the other milk brand, which will become the most dominant team in the 90s – Alaska, will win its first PBA title.
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