THE best of the best Filipino high school players here and abroad will converge once more inside the SM Mall of Asia Arena from March 15 to 19 in the 2023 NBTC National Finals and All-Star Game.
“Finally, after a three-year wait, the stage is set for young Filipino talent to shine again. We’re very much excited for our tournament to prove that Philippine grassroots basketball is alive and well,” said NBTC Program Director Eric Altamirano.
The national championship most recently won by Nazareth School of National University twice in a row in 2018 and 2019 will be contested by 24 teams who will first duke it out in classification contests where the winners will be classified into Division 1, while the losers will be moved to Division 2. Both divisions will then get three-team groups of four which will battle each other in round-robin eliminations.
The top team from each group will advance to the knockout semifinals and finals, where the Div. 1 and Div. 2 kings will be crowned.
The previous National Finals saw the Bullpups – then led by Carl Tamayo, Terrence Fortea, and Gerry Abadiano – stamp their class on the competition, even as they were challenged by Jalen Green’s Fil-Am Sports USA, Kai Sotto’s Ateneo de Manila High School, and Justine Sanchez and Yukien Andrada’s San Beda High School.
