NCAA coaches excited for new basketball tournament format

THE NCAA coaches are all primed and ready to take on the Season 101 men’s basketball tournament with a brand new approach.

After all, they’ll be needing it, considering that the oldest league in the country will be enforcing a new format for the upcoming basketball season.

Veering away from the traditional double round-robin elimination format, the NCAA will now have group games divided into two pools.

San Beda coach Yuri Escueta sees it as a growing opportunity not just for the Red Lions but also for every other team in the league.

“Siguro for me yung beauty ng new format gives everyone a chance,” he said at Novotel on Monday afternoon during the league’s presser.

“Makikita mo rin sa preseason na lahat ng teams nagpalakas.”

In the NCAA’s newest format, teams are divided into Groups A and B and will play their group mates twice while playing the opposing group’s teams once.

For a total of 13 elimination round games, the positioning for each group will be established. The top three teams go on to the next phase while the two cellar dwellers for each group duke it out to determine the last members of the quarterfinals.

On paper, it sounds like teams will have a more complicated time to reach the promised land.

That doesn’t seem to faze Lyceum coach Gilbert Malabanan, though, who believes every team will be hungrier come October.

“All of us naman, ang main goal naman natin is to win a championship,” he said.

In the quarterfinals, the two group’s teams will go on a crossover knockout phase with the top two teams of each pool gaining twice-to-beat advantages.

In the semifinals, four teams will clash in best-of-three series that’ll determine the cast for the Season 101 Finals.

Group A will have defending champion Mapua alongside fellow semifinalist Lyceum, Perpetual Help, San Sebastian and Arellano.

San Beda and College of St. Benilde banner Group B, which also has Letran, Jose Rizal University and Emilio Aguinaldo College.

The games officially begin on October 1 at the historic Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.