US March Madness-style tourney comes to Philippines with 'Big Dance'

MANILA, Philippines -- Having the best college teams from various collegiate tournaments meet in a tournament to decide the “best” team isn’t new on local soil.

That kind of idea has been done numerous times.

The problem was consistency.

Enter the Big Dance, a new league with the same idea of crowning the top collegiate program but with some fresh ideas to be part of the system to make it more enticing not only for participating schools but for Filipino basketball fanatics -- think about ranking of teams.

“It’s about time that we have this, and have this hopefully on a consistent basis. The Big Dance will be Philippine basketball's chance to replicate the US NCAA’s March Madness,” said Pinoyliga Cup chief Benny Benitez, adding that they are eyeing to launch it this year.

“Pinoyliga Cup will be at forefront of this ambitious undertaking, which we will start by ranking the 40 best college basketball programs. Before, a tournament used to gather the top four teams, but now we’ll have them ranked on a weekly basis before they enter the tournament,” he said.

According to Benitez, each week, a group of college basketball analysts picked by Pinoyliga will track down and monitor the progress and performance of the 40 teams.

From there, the ranking would allow the movement of teams.

Benitez said that half of the 40 teams to be ranked will come from the two major college leagues in the country, the UAAP with eight and the NCAA with 12, while the remaining 20 will come from other leagues like Pinoyliga.

From there, 32 teams will be invited to enter the Big Dance, where they will play in a bracketed competition that is patterned from the US NCAA’s March Madness.

The teams will play in a knockout system, with the champion team crowned at the end of the tournament.