Last night, in a surprising turn of events for many, Shaun Ildefonso announced on his Twitter account that he was leaving Ateneo to join the NU Bulldogs. You can find his entire message below: Ateneo will always be home. Thank you for the One Big Fight 💙 pic.twitter.com/uV2usLF7bx — Shaun Ildefonso (@ShaunIldefonso) May 29, 2017 The gist of his message is this: He's joining NU to join his dad, and he feels like with the Bulldogs, his athletic potential will be fully realized. The rest of his message has him thanking friends that he made during his stay in college, and the rest of the Ateneo community. For the case of this piece, only two facts are important: Shaun Ildefonso is going to NU, and a big reason for that happens to be his dad, Danny Ildefonso. So how do these factors affect not only Shaun, but other things as well? Let's talk about just that. How the decision affects Shaun It's important that we discuss the primary subject of this entire exercise...

(Photo Credit: Filoil Flying V Sports) When you talk about NCAA teams in the Filoil Flying V Preseason Tournament, the Lyceum Pirates and the JRU Heavy Bombers are the ones who have stood out thus far. The Heavy Bombers have shown that they're a team worth keeping an eye on after their opening day upset victory against the heavily favored De La Salle Green Archers. Ever since that victory, they've performed admirably led by their big gun in Teytey Teodoro.  The Pirates have started to receive comparisons to the Letran Knights team that surprised everyone during NCAA Season 92 thanks to their unorthodox press, and their high-octane attack. They've been extremely tough to stop, and a big reason for that is none other than the Baby Beast himself CJ Perez.  As both teams continue to make noise, all of a sudden, a loud roar is heard. The Heavy Bombers and the Pirates stand still. San Beda emerges and tells both teams as if they're Madison Montgomery from Amer...

(Photo Credit: Filoil Flying V Sports) Coming into the 2017 Collegiate Basketball season, most people expected the game plan against La Salle to be simple: Swarm Ben Mbala with defenders down low, and force other Green Archers to kill you from outside. Theoretically, it made sense. La Salle's three-point shooting is sub-par after all. At the same time, La Salle no longer has a guy who they could just dump the ball to if Ben's being swarmed with defenders like a Jeron Teng. In short, the search for that elusive second option! Sadly, there's no one who's shown consistency to be that other guy beside Big Ben. Aljun Melecio and Ricci Rivero have shown good things, but only in spurts. Andrei Caracut isn't getting much minutes because of his woes defensively. Leonard Santillian remains an unproven option. So if Big Ben fails, where does La Salle go to? Well, guess what? La Salle's found a solution to this problem of theirs! The solution is well... to keep ...

The UP Fighting Maroons managed to eke out a solid victory against the CSB Blazers in the Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup led by Paul Desiderio's 22 points and 10 rebounds. For more on last week's Filoil action, check out the Morning Rundown .  Otherwise, here are some photos from yesterday's action between the Fighting Maroons and the Blazers. All photos courtesy of Mico Ongkeko. Give him a follow here ! 

It's been a while since we've had a rundown. With the SEABA tournament out of the way (congrats Gilas!), it's time to go back to some Collegiate Basketball action. So, what's happened in the Filoil Flying V tournament in the past week? La Salle and UST had a (kind of) brawl! Just last week, Marvin Lee and new Green Archer Ramil Tero were nearly involved in a brawl in the blowout win of La Salle against the struggling UST Growling Tigers. The worst part in all of this is how the brawl happened near the end of the game, where the result of the game was set in stone already.  This is a very bad look for a UST team that looks like it's going to struggle immensely this upcoming Season 80. Frustrations are only going to boil even further as they try to find ways to win, and with the personnel that they have, it's going to be quite the task. For the case of La Salle, this should serve as a lesson for them. They're a dominant team entering the up...

(Photo Credit: Filoil Flying V Sports) Being unbeaten usually means something good is happening. That's true, for the most part. You're winning, the result teams desire to get when they play basketball games. The Adamson Soaring Falcons happen to be a team that's unbeaten in the Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup. Does that mean that they're doing good things? Yeah, they are. They're a team that's utilizing their depth and talent extremely well to be able to eke out victories. But that's exactly the problem with these Soaring Falcons. They're just barely escaping with wins instead of blowing teams off the roof with the amount of talent that they have. The reality of it is that, if a team wants to be able to blow teams off the roof, talent's isn't enough (unless the disparity is THAT big). A team has to be able to mesh that talent well in order for it to work like a well-oiled machine.  Right now, the Soaring Falcons have really great pa...

(Photo Credit: Patrick Gunnacao, Humblebola) It's hard to believe that the UST basketball program is the team that's made it to the UAAP Finals the most for the past five years. Surprising right? Well, it's actually true. Season 75 - ADMU def. UST Season 76 - DLSU def. UST Season 77 - NU def. FEU Season 78 -  FEU def. UST Season 79 -  DLSU def. ADMU DLSU's made it twice. Ateneo's made it twice. So has FEU. UST? They've made it a whopping three times for the past five years. Another thing that separates UST from the rest of the Finalists from the past five years? They've never won the UAAP championship. They've been bridesmaids three times now. It's only a matter of time before they become brides themselves, raising the UAAP title at the end of the basketball season. Sadly, from being just bridesmaids, they've been relegated to just guests, watching the rest of the teams in the UAAP try to become a bride. Anytime a prog...

(Photo Credit: Filoil Flying V Sports) It's been a while since CJ Perez was under the spotlight. After deciding to leave the San Sebastian Golden Stags in the NCAA, the Baby Beast decided to take his talents to the Ateneo Blue Eagles. He sat out one year to undergo residency, and while doing so, he dominated competition in smaller leagues like the Fr. Martin's tourney and the Milcu Got Skills Challenge. CJ Perez vs. Ben Mbala? It was a match-up that was to die for. Sadly, we weren't able to be witness to that match-up, as Perez decided to leave Ateneo because of issues with academics. After waiting for one year to get his shot at redemption, his comeback tour was derailed once more. He took his talents to Intramuros with Lyceum, where he was reunited with former head coach Topex Robinson.  It looks like he's finally found a home in LPU. Guys like Ben Mbala and Teytey Teodoro have dominated headlines with regards to the Filoil tournament, but CJ Perez ...

(Photo Credit: Filoil Flying V Sports) Evan Nelle had a bad season last year. Even if he himself didn't admit it explicitly, you could see with the way he played and with his body language that he was not content with how he was performing. San Beda still managed to make it to the Finals, but Evan going MIA during the Finals didn't help with their chances of completing an 8-peat. It got even worse for Evan. After being named as practically a shoo-in in the SLAM Rising Stars Classic, he wasn't even considered in the all-star game. He was able to make it to the NBTC All-Star Game, but in the rankings made by coaches and analysts, the Red Cub was ranked 25th out of 26 players. From being one of the top prospects in High School Basketball, to an afterthought. Immediately, Nelle went to work. Agains the Ateneo Blue Eaglets, all that work showed. There weren't any drastic changes to his game or his body. He was still his usual lanky self, with some added muscle. N...

(Photo Credit: SLAM Philippines) If you're a fan and somehow you manage to sneak your way into the backstage, chances are, you're going to run towards the locker room more than anything else. I can't blame you if you were to do that. It's in that room where all of the stars, coaches and top management are. If you want a place to get to know your stars even better, that's the place to go to. But if there's a room that is incredibly underrated, it's the press room. It's in that room where members of the media discuss a number of things related to sports. There's discussion of facts. Of course, rumors are thrown into the fray, with most of these being pure speculation. Then, there's the #MAMARU analysis of the members of the media. Inside the Press Room hopes to get you fans closer to the discussions which the media have. What this part of the blog hopes to bring are those three things which I mentioned above: The news regarding a partic...

(Photo Credit: Dante Peralta, Spin.ph) There's almost always been a tinge of doubt when it came to the performance of the Ateneo Blue Eagles last season. Some analysts and fans view the Blue Eagles as a team that was lucky to not have that much competiton during Season 79, which led to them making it to the Finals against the La Salle Green Archers. It was all about luck. The same can be said about Mike Nieto's performance. He was arguably the most consistent player for the Blue Eagles, scoring in double digits for a number of games. However, fans still doubted his capabilities, with some even going as far as to call him a system player. Alright, sure. Mike is a system player. But I think it's time to give him some credit. Being a system player isn't always a bad thing, as shown by how good Mike has played. It isn't just a matter of following a system. It's a matter of following the system in place, but at the same time, knowing how to make good b...

(Photo Credit: Filoil Flying V Sports) It's easy (and fun!) to throw in hot takes every now and then. It creates discussion between people, and well, it gets you attention. Screw the context of whatever is happening. I have a hot take, so here. But, we have to remember that context still matters. Right now in the Filoil Flying V Tournament, it's important to temper our expectations with regards to how teams perform in this tourney. After all, succeeding (or failing) in the Filoil tourney has never been a sure-fire way of determining whether a team is good is not.  Remember the Season 75 NU Bulldogs and Season 76 UE Red Warriors? They dominated competition, but they failed to contend for a title during the UAAP season. What a shame. The collegiate basketball season is back! Fun times. But temper your expectations. This train is just getting started once more. With that, here's the rundown.  Hump Day Scores: UST Tiger Cubs def. JRU Light Bombers 79-71 ...

The Filoil Flying V Preseason tournament tipped off yesterday, with the JRU Heavy Bombers, Lyceum Pirates and the Adamson Falcons chalking up wins to start their seasons. For the DLSU Green Archers, Ateneo Blue Eagles and Arellano Chiefs, they weren't able to start their respective seasons in the way they wanted to. For more on that, check it out here . For more Day One pictures, scroll down below to check them out! All photos courtesy of Mico Ongkeko. Give him a follow here !