STI National Basketball Tournament 2016 Season is now open

The 2016 STI National Basketball Tournament opened last February 6, 2016 with three games in Metro Manila and one game in Mindanao. This nationwide basketball tournament will feature 51 STI teams from the three Regions with 35 teams in Luzon, six teams from the Visayas and another 10 in Mindanao with a total of six hundred STIer’s playing in this event.  STI College Taft squeaked past STI College Bacoor 68 – 65, STI College Santa Rosa beat STI College Marikina 90 – 41 while STI College Las Pinas outlasted STI College Fairview 91 – 86 in the Luzon games. In the lone Mindanao game, STI College Cagayan de Oro beat newcomer STI College Pagadian 95 – 62.

The STI National Basketball Tournament has various formats in determining the final eight teams that will play in the National Finals.  In Luzon, the 35 teams are bracketed into eight different divisions. For Luzon 1 to 4, with most teams coming from Metro Manila, four to five teams comprise each division with three teams advancing to the second round after a one round elimination. For Luzon 5 to 8, four teams comprise each division and the four teams will play a knock-out format with one team advancing to the second. In the second round, all sixteen teams advancing from the previous round will be seeded from 1 to 16 depending on their performance in the first round. They will play in a knock-out game with the pairing having the top team (#1) play the lowest seeded team (#16). This is similar to the US NCAA Sweet Sixteen format. The winners then advance to the third round with the top seeded (#1) team battling the lowest seeded (#8) team. The four winners will advance to the National Finals while the losing teams (4 teams) will face each other for the remaining two slots.

In the Visayas and Mindanao regions the teams will play the knock-out format with one team representing the Visayas and another one representing Mindanao in the National Finals. The Visayas region is divided into two divisions with three teams each. The winners of each division will then face each other to determine the team that will represent the Visayas region.  In the Mindanao region the ten teams are divided into the four divisions and the knock-out format will also be used to determine the teams advancing to the second round.  In the second round, the four remaining teams will play a knock –out match with the top two teams playing against each other for the right to represent the Mindanao region.

In the National finals, the eight teams are divided into two groups and will play a one round elimination. After the one round elimination there will be a cross-over semifinals with the top teams in both groups playing the second placed team from the other group. The winner will then play in a one game championship, the losing teams will battle for third place. All games in the National finals will be played at the newly built Eusebio H. Tanco Gymnasium from April 11 to 15, 2016. The STI National Basketball Tournament is part of STI’s student development program.  STI holds Academic Competitions, Talent competitions, Visual Arts competitions and now Sports competitions which helps strengthen STI’s holistic approach to student development.