Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Perpetual Help seeks to live up to strong pre-season hype as it takes on a new-look Lyceum Tuesday (June 30) for a share of the lead with San Beda and Jose Rizal in the 91st NCAA basketball tournament at The Arena in San Juan City.
The Altas will not only be parading reigning NCAA MVP Earl Scottie Thompson but also a pair of Nigerian imports in tall and talented Bright Akhuetie and Prince Eze, who were impressive in the pre-season last summer.
Thompson, a member of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medal-winning Gilas cadet team, will skipper the team he helped propel to a pair of Final Four performances the last two seasons.
And he will have an able back up in the power-playing duo of the 6-8 Akhueti and 6-11 Eze, who led the Altas to the Fr. Martin Collegiate Cup title and a quarterfinal finish in the strong Filoil Flying V Cup.
“We’re blessed to have players like them who is a good player on and off the court,” said Perpetual Help coach Aric del Rosario of Akhuetie and Eze.
Akhuetie and Eze though will debut against an equally tall Lyceum team now coached by Topex Robinson and former NCAA and PBA star Rommel Adducul, who both took over from Bonnie Tan.
Related: Lyceum coach Robinson hopes to build ‘winning culture’
Like the Altas, the Pirates are also loaded up front with Joseph Gabayni, Jebb Bulawan, Seraja Elmejrab and the African duo of Guy Mbida and Jean Victor Nguidjol giving Akhuetie and Eze a run for thier money.
“Although we have some players who are remnants from last year, this is actually a team with a brand new outlook,” said Robinson, who jumped from San Sebastian a season ago to Lyceum.
Also eyeing a share of the early lead are Letran and College of St. Benilde, which will clash at 4PM.
The Perpetual-Lyceum showdown is at 2PM.
The Knights got a big boost from the return of co-captain Kevin Racal from a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury he sustained late in last year’s season, to form a strong backcourt trio also composed on Mark Cruz and Rey Nambatac.
Letran also tapped a relatively unknown Aldin Ayo to take over the coaching reins from Caloy Garcia.
Ayo’s resume includes being part of KIA’s PBA club and coaching sorties with Jr. NBA and Jr. WNBA and Sorsogon.
For the Blazers, they will rely heavily on Jonathan Grey after losing Mark Romero and Juan Paolo Taha to the pros.
Related: CSB Blazers more determined despite loss of Taha, Romero
