UV, UC renew rivalry in Moalboal basketball

CEBU, Philippines — The University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers and the University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters will  rekindle their rivalry in the 1st Mayor Inocentes Cabaron Inter-Collegiate Invitational Basketball Tournament in Moalboal next month.

The two teams, which made the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI) finals last year, were among the teams nominated by commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy who will be joining the cash-rich tilt staged as part of activities in the runup to the town fiesta.

Only six of the seven members of Cebu’s collegiate league were invited due to budgetary constraints.

Aside from the 14-time champion UV and two-time champion UC, the other four teams are the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Panthers , University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars, Cebu Institute of Technology-University (CIT-U) Wildcats and Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma Cobras.

They will play a single round robin, with the top two fighting for the title and P200,000 cash prize. The third and fourth-ranked teams will play for third place worth P100,000, while the eliminated teams will receive P20,000 each.

This early, UV, which won last year’s CESAFI after sweeping UC in their best-of-three finals, is the heavy favorite.

Basketball is just one of a series of sports events initiated by Mayor Inocentes Cabaron, who also pushed for competitions in chess, Mobile Legends, dayon-dayon volleyball, and arnis.

Mayor Cabaron will meet with the coaches of the six schools and the CESAFI officials led by Tiukinhoy for the coaches’ meeting and press conference on Friday, March 24. — EBV