Zamboanga City claims President's Cup first leg

Your President's Cup first leg champions: Zamboanga City

Family Brand Sardines-Zamboanga City-Chooks took care of business inside the "Calambubble," as they topped the first leg of the Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3x3 President's Cup powered by TM on Wednesday.

The quartet of Joshua Munzon, Alvin Pasaol, Troy Rike, and Leonard Santillan completed the sweep with a 21-17 victory over Butuan-Uling Roasters in the final.

Butuan did not make it easy for Zamboanga City, establishing a 17-14 lead before a Munzon two-pointer jumpstarted a 7-0 run to complete the come-from-behind victory.

The man called the "Night King" scored twelve points in the final, capped off by a free throw. He shared afterwards, "Again, it showed we can fight through adversity. We just stuck to our script. We took advantage of our advantages."

Pasaol added six markers and kept the team afloat early on as they tried to fend off a game Butuan side, which was led by Karl Dehesa's six points. Chris De Chavez and Chico Lanete each contributed four markers.

Zamboanga City claims the PhP 100,000 prize for clinching the title. By virtue of the incentive plan league owner Ronald Mascarinas put in place for teams to help Zamboanga City with their Olympic Qualifying Tournament preparations, Butuan City also earned P100,000 aside from their second place prize of PhP 30,000.

To get to the final, Zamboanga City dispatched Porac in the quarters and Nueva Ecija in the semis, while Butuan City dispatched Bacolod in the quarters and Zamboanga Peninsula in the semifinals.

Earning PhP 20,000 as third placers are the Rice Vanguards, who had to play the knockout rounds with only three players after an ankle injury to Juan Gomez de Liano.

In the side events for the first leg, De Chavez claimed the TM Two-Point Shootout and its PhP 10,000 cash prize, while Jesus Manay upset David Carlos to claim the TM Slam Dunk contest and its PhP 20,000 incentive.

The second leg of the President's Cup will take place on Friday inside the bubble setup at INSPIRE Sports Academy in Calamba.

The Scores:

ZAMBOANGA CITY 21 -- Munzon 12, Pasaol 6, Santillan 2, Rike 1.

BUTUAN CITY 17 -- Dehesa 6, De Chavez 4, Lanete 4, Johnson 3.

Balanga activates Santillan for Patriots Cup

He's back. Leonard Santillan returns to Balanga for the Patriot's Cup.

The fourth leg of the Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3x3 Patriot's Cup presented by Coca-Cola is set to take place tomorrow, and with the race for the top spot as close as it is, teams are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to finish the tournament on top.

Foremost in that quest is Wilkins-Balanga Pure, who have gone back to an old reliable for this penultimate leg, replacing Chris de Chavez with Leonard Santillan.

Currently the top-ranked Under-23 Filipino in the FIBA 3x3 rankings at 51st overall, Santillan was part of Balanga's run towards four finals appearances in the President's Cup, will make his Patriot's Cup debut at the SM Megamall Events Center. He joins Alvin Pasaol, Karl Dehesa, and Travis Franklin as they seek to build on the momentum they got from securing their first finals berth during the third leg this past weekend, with the squad in fourth place with 220 points.

Speaking of momentum, Basilan Steel is now atop the leaderboard after finally nailing their first title with 260 points. They will still be without Roosevelt Adams for this leg, with the Fil-Am committed to see action for Mighty Sports in the Jones Cup after missing the last leg with an injury. After tapping Gab Dagangon last week, the Steel will look to Brandon Hunter to fill the void alongside Franky Johnson, Troy Rike, and Marcus Hammonds.

With just a 30-point lead over VetHealth-Delhi and Gold's Gym-Pasig, Basilan recognize the situation they are in. Johnson shares, "We can't be complacent. We have to work on our plays and continue to build chemistry with each other."

The 3x3BL veterans are coming off a semifinal loss to the Steel, doing so with just three guys as AJ Gill was not available.

The Kings, on the other hand, missed out on the last leg due to their participation in the Poitiers Challenger at the 3x3 World Tour, where they finally got a victory that proved to be enough to get them into the knockout rounds, where they finished eighth overall. League organizers have rewarded them for their effort in France with the appropriate number of points to move them into a tie with Delhi at 230 points.

Taylor Statham shares, "We can't wait to show what we've learned from our France experience."

As for the others, Max4-Birada Cebu is looking to make it back-to-back semifinal appearances as it taps Mark Penerio for Jerome Napao, while Zamboanga Valientes MLV replaces Ola Adeogun with Darius Scott.

Pool play starts at 1045am tomorrow with coverage spread all across the ESPN5 social media footprint, with TV5 telecast scheduled at 1pm.

Teams have been allocated into these groups:

Pool A: Phenom-Basilan CTC Construction, Mindoro Tamaraws, Zamboanga Valientes MLV
Pool B: Wilkins-Balanga Pure, Max4-Birada Cebu, Marikina Shoemasters
Pool C: VetHealth-Delhi 3x3BL, Inoza-Gulf Bulacan, Thunder-Pateros Hunters
Pool D: Gold's Gym-Pasig, Tycoon-Ballers Quezon City, MiGuard-Vigan

Chooks World Tour yields immediate dividends in FIBA 3x3 rankings

Taylor Statham drives to the basket against Katara opposition.

The Philippines' quest to make the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 3x3 basketball continues to make incidental advances, in the advent of the release of the updated FIBA 3x3 rankings.

After the FIBA 3x3 World Tour Masters in Doha, the Philippines moved up a single spot in the federation rankings to 31st overall with 1,806,820 points.

This is possible due to the effort of Pasig Grindhouse and the Bataan Risers, who finished fifth and sixth in the first leg of the 2019 World Tour.

Chooks Pilipinas 3x3 owner Ronald Mascariñas says, "We are elated with this development but the work is far from over." He adds, "We at Chooks-to-Go will continue to do our part in helping promote 3x3 basketball, develop our players, and join the tournaments sanctioned by FIBA."

The efforts of two teams also yielded their own benefits for themselves.

Pasig is now ranked 27th in the world with their fifth-place finish, having beat Katara, 21-14 in just over eight minutes and upsetting Liman, 19-16, before bowing out to Riga Ghetto in the quarterfinals, 15-21.

The Kings have a chance to further improve these rankings with their participation in the Huaqiao International Kunshan Challenger this coming May 18-19. This particular Challenger is a qualifier to the Chengdu Masters, which is the second leg of the 3x3 World Tour.

Individually, Taylor Statham moved past teammate Joshua Munzon to be the top-ranked Filipino in 3x3.

Statham is now ranked 114th in the world with 349,080. Munzon is now 120th with 338,520.

Bataan's core duo of Alvin Pasaol and Leonard Santillan also rocketed up the standings, with Pasaol now 148th at 308,680 and Santillan at 221st 254,820.

FIBA has set some guidelines in order to secure berths in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, with only seven available berths (as Japan claims one spot by serving as hosts).

Only the top 24 federations as of November 1 this year will be allowed to participate in the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, which as of the moment are composed of:

Men: Serbia, Russia, Slovenia, Latvia, Japan, China, Mongolia, United States, Netherlands, Qatar, Lithuania, Ukraine, Brazil, Romania, Poland, France, Estonia, Czech Republic, Canada, South Korea, Turkey, Germany, Hungary, and Belarus (5,934,045). The Philippines is currently 30th with 5,196,380.

Women: China, Mongolia, Russia, Romania, France, Estonia, Japan, Ukraine, Netherlands, Hungary, Uruguay, Iran, Indonesia, Italy, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Brazil, Latvia, Belarus, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Spain, Turkmenistan, and Australia (985,332). The Philippines is currently 35th with 628,245.

In addition, National team pools are restricted to the top 10 players of each country in the FIBA 3x3 rankings. Players in the Chooks Pilipinas 3x3 compose the top 21 3x3 Filipinos in the country as of the end of the President's Cup.