The LMP-Cebu Junior Basketball Tournament

Aside from the deluge of fiestas, summer months also brings us shiploads of tournaments ranging from the far-flung sitios to the highly organized and well-financed leagues in the cities. We are a republic of vertically-challenged people and the irony of it all is that we love a sport intended for people who consider coconut trees and flagpoles as their relatives.

But who cares? We have been enjoying basketball games for decades and it is not unusual for entities to organize and sponsor basketball leagues in the name of unity, brotherhood and camaraderie. Or for whatever, for that matter.

The League of Municipalities of the Philippines, Cebu Chapter, organized a first-ever province-wide junior basketball tournament scheduled to open this coming May 21. 44 municipalities and the four component cities of Toledo, Naga, Carcar and Bogo signified their interest to participate in this developmental league.

The municipalities are divided thru conferences according to their geographical locations so we have the Northern, Central, Southern and Island Conferences. These conferences are further divided into clusters so each conference will have a West and East division.

To qualify, players must be 17 years old and below, provided they won’t be 18 years old come July 31. Since the tournament aims to develop raw talents, varsity, trainees or those who are in the reserved squad of schools, colleges or universities are disqualified. The tournament has a home-and-away format, a double round-robin elimination round with the top two teams in each division advancing to the cross-over semis round. Conference champions then advances to the Provincial Final Four in a single round-robin series.

A non-refundable P5,000 entry fee will be collected. This will be used by the LMP-Cebu to offset anticipated expenses incurred as the tournament progresses. A bond of P5,000 is also required from participating teams which will be given back to them at the end of the tournament provided the teams won’t forfeit or walk-out from scheduled games or withdraw from the tournament.

The division level champion gets P20,000, the three runner-ups gets P15,000, P10,000 and P5,000 respectively. Provincial level champion recieves the top prize of P80,000. Runner-ups get P60,000, P40,000, and P20,000 respectively.

Tournament commissioner is “El Presidente” himself, PBA legend Mon Fernandez. If I got him right, outstanding and promising athletes from this tournament will be invited to the National Basketball Training Center, of which he is a major stakeholder. The true literal meaning of “pain in the neck” comes in its full glory when talking to El Presidente. Sakit atong li-og sige ug hangad niya. Oh well, a small price to pay for conversing with a true Filipino hoops legend. Bisdak pa jud!

Interested parties may get in touch with their respective SK chairmen or municipal mayors for more details.

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