The point guard known as the "Cool Cat" has displayed icy nerves before, but not as emphatic as last Sunday when he ably carried Alaska on his shoulders while completely outplaying a rookie bent on upstaging him.

In the end, Cortez wound up with a career-high 27 points on top of eight assists to lift the Aces to a 108-104 double overtime victory over the Sta. Lucia Realtors at the start of their PBA Fiesta Conference wildcard series at the Astrodome.

"Mike was awesome," exclaimed Alaska coach Tim Cone of Cortez stepping up big when the Aces failed to get the expected numbers from import Odell Bradley and thus were drawn to a tooth-and-nail battle.

"We were just giving him pick-and-roll plays and he was making the most out of it," Cone added. "Mike made up for most of our deficiencies tonight." Those words from the usually discerning Cone helped the 25-year-old Fil-Am earn the nod of the PBA Press Corps as its San Mig Coffee Player of the Week.

Basically, however, it was the man the Uytengsu franchise made the top pick overall in the 2003 Rookie Draft who made his selection over such other contenders as San Miguel Beer’s Danny Ildefonso, Air21’s Ren-Ren Ritualo and Ginebra’s Mark Caguioa easier.