NCAA SEASON 83 BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS

The 'basketball tournaments of National Collegiate Athletic Association (Philippines) 83rd season' hosted by Jose Rizal University began on June 23 at the Araneta Coliseum with BAP-Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Manuel V. Pangilinan as the keynote speaker. All subsequent first round games will be held at The Arena in San Juan. The theme of the season is "Soaring High at 83" while the Studio 23 coverage uses the theme "Brotherhood of the ball" (Tagalog for "dramatic").

Uniforms

Letran	CSB	JRU	Mapua	San Beda	SSC-R	UPHD

Seniors' tournament

Preseason events

San Beda Red Lions replaced their head coach; Purefoods assistant coach Koy Banal was replaced by Talk 'N Text team manager Frankie Lim, while the Mapua Cardinals hired former Cardinal Leo Isaac to replace Horacio Lim (no relation to the Talk 'N Text team manager).^[1] San Sebastian, meanwhile, hired Philippine Basketball League champion coach Jorge Gallent of the Harbour Centre Batang Pier.^[2]
With the suspension of the PCU Dolphins, only seven teams would compete in the tournament.
The basketball tournament began on June 23 with a triple-header at the Araneta Coliseum with hosts JRU facing defending champions San Beda while Intramuros rivals Letran and Mapua face off in the last televised game. All of the remaining elimination round games are set to be held at The Arena in San Juan.

Elimination round

The opening day was held at the Araneta Coliseum with BAP-Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Manuel V. Pangilinan as the keynote speaker. All subsequent first round games will be held at The Arena in San Juan.

Team standings

'Qualified for playoffs'

Team	W	L	GB
border San Beda Red Lions ★	11	1	--
border Letran Knights ★	9	3	2
border 'JRU Heavy Bombers'	7	5	4
border Mapua Cardinals	6	6	5
border UPHD Altas	4	8	7
border San Sebastian Stags	4	8	7
border CSB Blazers	1	11	10
border PCU Dolphins	'Suspended'

★ Clinched twice to beat advantage.
Host team in 'boldface'.

Schedule

'Win'	'OT win'	'Loss'	'OT loss'

School	Round 1						Round 2
School	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
'CSJL
'CSB
'JRU
'MIT
'PCU	Suspended
'SBC
'SSC-R
'UPHD

Rivalry games

Postseason teams

San Beda Red Lions

San Beda seeking to sweep the first round (they were unable to do so last year), dominated the opposition; on the final game of the first round, the Red Lions faced the second place Letran Knights. Although SBC led for much of the game, the Knights made a scathing comeback capped off with 6 points in the last minutes of Letran's Rey Guevarra, who converted an undergoal stab to put Letran up for good, after San Beda's Pong Escobal converted a disputed two-point shot.
The Red Lions then rebounded after their loss and had another 5-game winning streak leading up to their second-round rematch against Letran. A notable game was against JRU where San Beda was embroiled in a legal tussle with the league (see Aljamal suspension, below). JRU committed 3 unsportsmanlike fouls as SBC head coach Frankie Lim and JRU mentor Ariel Vanguardia had a shouting match along the The Arena's corridors after the game was over. San Beda avenged their first round loss against Letran with a win in which they've led for the whole second half.

Letran Knights

After a blistering 4-0 start, the Knights were dealt with their first loss by JRU, but not after rallying 20 points down went up short. Their emphatic win against San Beda ensured a #1 finish for the Knights, but their Intramuros rivals Mapua denied them of another 4-0 start as MVP candidate Kelvin dela Peña bailed out the Cardinals with an almost triple-double performance. Letran won their next game against rivals San Sebastian to setup with their rematch against San Beda.
Trailing most of the game, Letran cut the deficit to two but a Borgie Hermida three-pointer kept the Knights from victory as they were beaten by San Beda 87-84 at the sold-out Araneta Coliseum. After the game, Letran players and San Beda supporters engaged in a brawl. With practically the coaches and players receiving slaps on their wrists, Letran beat JRU in a frantic finish to seize the #2 seed and the twice to beat advantage.

JRU Heavy Bombers

JRU suffered an opening game loss against San Beda but rebounded on the next game to beat San Sebastian. However, they were beaten two more times, one via overtime against UPHD to fall with a 1-3 card. JRU seized the advantage on their game against Letran and prevented the Knights from catching up as they held on to win the game.
JRU then made 5 consecutive wins in order to at least assure themselves of playoff for the last semis berth. San Beda then broke the winning streak in a fight-marred game in which 3 JRU players were assessed with unsportsmanlike fouls. On their next game against a desperate SSC-R (which needed to win to stay in contention), the Bombers rallied to 7-0 run in the last 2 minutes to force overtime and they eventually won the game. With the Bombers losing to the Knights in their rescheduled game, JRU now has to beat Letran consecutively to enter the Finals.

Mapúa Cardinals

Mapúa started on the wrong foot with a 0-3 start with losses against rivals Letran, against CSB in their only win in the season, and San Beda without last year's Sam Ekwe who was suspended. Mapúa then won against JRU and Perpetual and overtime to finish the first round against 2-4.
Mapúa lost a further two games against San Beda and JRU but defeated Letran. Anchored by two-time player of the week Kelvin dela Peña, Mapúa won the next 4 games in order to finish with a 6-6 card. Due to several typhoons suspending some of the games, the Cardinals finished a week early, but thanks to losses of San Sebastian, Mapúa clinched the #4 berth a semis rematch against San Beda which had eliminated them in the 2006 semifinals.

Bracket

Semifinals

San Beda-Mapua series

Elimination round games:

★ July 4: Mapua 77-87 'San Beda' at the Arena

★ July 27: Mapua 75-89 'San Beda' at the Arena

Letran-JRU series

Elimination round games:

★ July 20: 'JRU' 79-75 Letran at the Arena

★ September 3: JRU 71-74 'Letran' at the Arena

Finals

Suspensions

★ Samuel Ekwe of the San Beda Red Lions after kicking Lee Sang Myeon of UPHD Altas. Served one-game suspension at their July 4 game against the Mapua Cardinals.

★ Coach Jorge Gallent of the San Sebastian Stags after being ejected for two technical fouls on a game against the Letran Knights. Served one-game suspension at their July 13 game against the Mapua Cardinals; Staglets coach Raymond Valenzona coached in place of him.

★ St. Benilde Blazers shooting guard Paolo Orbeta has been arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation for alleged game-fixing in NCAA games.^[3] This has been the first arrest in game-fixing since the investigation last season. Orbera has been suspended by CSB and the NCAA indefinitely starting from their second round game against the JRU Heavy Bombers as further investigation continues.^[4]

Aljamal suspension

After Yousif Aljamal of the San Beda Red Lions was drafted at the 2007 Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Draft, he was suspended by the NCAA Management Committee (MANCOMM) for the rest of the season after not informing the MANCOMM that he was joining the draft (5 other players from the previous two seasons were able to play after they were drafted). San Beda appealed the decision, and Aljamal should had served his suspension from their August 22 game against the JRU Heavy Bombers.^[5] However, San Beda was able to secure a 72-hour temporary restraining order (TRO) that allowed Aljamal to play in the San Beda-JRU game (hence disabling the league in enforcing the suspension), while the NCAA Policy Board reduced to suspension to three games.^[6] With San Beda bringing the issue to the courts, a ranking member of suggested to ''The Daily Tribune'' that the Management Committee is mulling to suspend the basketball season.^[7]
With this development, ABS-CBN, the sole coveror of the basketball tournament, threatened to sue the league if the season was scrapped, citing massive advertising losses for the lost coverage; meanwhile JRU officials denied that cancellation of the season was suggested.^[8] San Beda meanwhile threatened to bolt out of the league (again) "if no solution is found to diffuse the ongoing case involving Aljamal."^[9] The Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) then granted a 20-day extension to the restraint after a lengthly hearing. It was also revealed that JRU President Vicente K. Fabella and top San Beda officials are to meet on Sunday (August 26) to find a conclusion to the issue.^[10]
The PBA for its part stated through a ranking official that Aljamal "has never played in a single tournament organized by the PBA and should not be considered a professional basketball player as of now."^[11] The NCAA meanwhile asked the Manila RTC to lift the TRO.^[12] ABS-CBN executives mediated the matter along with NCAA and San Beda officials, and are expected to announce the results of those negotiations on Tuesday with NCAA president Vicente Fabella and San Beda rector Mateo de Jesus. It was revealed was the PBA was the one tasked "to inform the various leagues of their players’ participation in the draft. But problems that beset the PBA have overtaken events and Aljamal was an unwilling victim. It was not his fault and he should not be sanctioned."^[13]
On the press conference held at the ABS-CBN Compound at Quezon City, San Beda withdrew their case against the NCAA and made Aljamal "sit out" the remaining elimination games (San Beda is assured of a twice to beat advantage at the semifinals) against UPHD and Letran. SBC also apologized to the NCAA for "all the difficulties and bad publicity" brought about by the Red Lions’ decision to seek the intervention of the court instead of trying to settle the controversy among the member schools.^[14] The NCAA for its part disregard the suspensions, hence placing Aljamal back in the race for individual awards.

Players of the week

The NCAA Press Corps awards an outstanding player every week:

★

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Ogie Menor (June 25-July 1)^[15]

★

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RJ Jazul (July 2-8)^[16]

★

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Yousif Aljamal (July 9-15)^[17]

★

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Rey Guevarra (July 16-29)

★

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Kelvin dela Peña (July 30-August 5)^[18]

★

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Kelvin dela Peña (August 6-12)

★

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Jim Viray (August 13-19)^[19]

★

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Bryan Faundo (August 20-26)^[20]

★

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Ogie Menor (August 27-Sept. 2)^[21]

Juniors' tournament

The juniors' basketball tournament begins on June 25 at The Arena in San Juan with six schools participating. (Note: PCU Baby Dolphins and Mapua's Malayan Science are expected to join in Season 84.)