CEBU Eastern College’s (CEC) versatile forward Ivan Ares has emerged as the top player in Week 1 of the Chooks-to-Go/National Basketball Training Center (NBTC) Cesafi 24 rankings.
Ares scored 26 points, grabbed six rebounds and had two steals to lead CEC to a 71-51 rout of preseason runner-up University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Baby Panthers.
In the second spot is the University of San Carlos’ (USC) guard Clint Anthony Octaviano, who gathered 16 points, three rebounds, three assists and two steals in the Baby Warriors’ 69-56 win over the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Baby Jaguars.
The Cebu Institute of Technology-University’s Sol Jade Tirol (CIT–U) also announced his arrival into the local scene with an all-around stat line of 12 points, six rebounds and a whopping seven steals in the Wildkittens’ 61-51 defeat of the Southwestern University (SWU) – Phinma Cobras.
Completing the top five are Khadshein Tagalog of USC and Brian Dave Santillan of SWU-Phinma.
Ranked sixth to tenth are USJ-R’s Brian Guibao, CIT-U’s Vincent Bugtai, USC’s Juan Raphael Garro, SWU-Phinma’s Kendall Limana and CEC’s Nick Galopen.
This year, there will be three separate editions of the Chooks-to-Go/NBTC 24 – NCAA, UAAP, and the Cesafi to accommodate the entire juniors calendar.
For the first installment, all Cesafi players will be ranked and deliberated weekly. After all three editions, a final list composing the top 24 players nationwide will be chosen to participate in the annual NBTC All-Star Game in March.