A HUGE target is on the back of defending collegiate champion University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers as they gun for their third straight championship in the 18th Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) basketball tournament.
UV head coach Gary Cortes feels that his team’s chances of a three-peat all depends on how their competition plays this season.
“It will be based on the performance of our opponents. If they will play badly, then we’ll surely get our three-peat,” Cortes said yesterday in the official presser for the Cesafi season.”A lot of our players have injuries, we are short of players. But we trained hard. We never trained this hard before. We started training after winning the championship. I hope for a grand slam. I hope some of the coaches will grant us our wish.”
UV lost center Lassina Coulibaly in the preseason tournament to a knee injury and replaced him with Bassieru Sackor, who helped the Green Lancers win two titles. UV also lost starting point guard Sheldon Gahi to a broken foot.
Last year’s runner-up, University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters, however, hopes that either they or the other teams--Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras, University of San Carlos (USC) Warriors, University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Panthers, University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars and Cebu Institute of Technology-University (CIT-U) Wildcats--will finally put an end to UV’s dominance.
“Actually, UV is the University of Basketball,” UC head coach Yayoy Alcoseba replied in jest to Cortes’ statement. “UV is always a championship team. They’re looking for a grand slam and the six of us (teams) must stop them from getting a grand slam.”
Cesafi Commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy thinks that UV and UC are still the top two contenders to win the crown this year. However, he also feels that some of the other teams will be surprise contenders.
“In my opinion, it’s still between UV and UC. USPF and USC are also there and I hope that USJ-R can be a dark horse. In the high school side, it will be very competitive. It’ll be anybody’s game,” he said.
The Cesafi basketball tournament kicks off this Saturday in the Cebu Coliseum. There will be an opening ceremony and the Ms. Cesafi competition followed by two games between SWU and CIT-U in both the high school and collegiate divisions. (EKA)