MORE LEAGUES NATIONWIDE START COMPETITIONS

by Rey D. Gamboa, Chairman-PCCL

About 108 collegiate teams are joining the road to the Philippine Collegiate Championship games within the next few weeks as several collegiate basketball leagues nationwide will start competitions to determine teams that will advance to the regional championships. Winners in the regional competitions will advance to the zonals and then to the final “Sweet 16” of the Philippine Collegiate Championship games.

Provincial “mother leagues” to start competitions are: Zamboanga-Sibugay Basketball League (July 27) with eight teams; Cagayan de Oro Students Athletic Assoc. (July 29) with eight teams; Cag. De Oro-PRISAA (July 29), four teams; Davao City Athletic Assoc. (August 2), seven teams; Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation (August 2), nine teams; Zamboanga del Norte League (August 8), seven teams; Leyte Universities, Schools & Colleges Athletic Assoc. (August 8), ten teams; Zamboanga City-wide Interschool League (August 9), twelve teams; Iloilo Schools Athletic League (August 15), seven teams, Bohol Collegiate League (August 16), four teams; Ormoc City Inter-schools League (August 16), nine teams; and Baguio Benguet Educational Athletic League (August 23), nine teams.  

In Metro-Manila, NAASCU with 13 teams will start on August 8, to be followed by CUSA with 13 teams and NCAA South with 9 teams.

Other major leagues in Metro-Manila, the UAAP and NCAA are in full gear with Ateneo, Letran, De La Salle, San Beda, FEU, Mapua, UE and JRU battling to earn the automatic slots in the “Sweet 16” Final Challenge. The champion and runner-up teams from the UAAP and NCAA are seeded in the final phase of the Philippine Collegiate championship games.

The first challenge of collegiate teams aiming to advance in the multi-level Philippine Collegiate Championship games is to win in their respective “mother league” competitions. Millions of pesos worth of grants for scholarship and athletic facilities are at stake in this annual search for the national collegiate champion being conducted by the Collegiate Champions League (PCCL).