CESAFI revises basketball rules

CEBU, Philippines - Changes in the tournament format will be imposed during the basketball event of the 10th Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (CESAFI), which will kick off on July 31 at the Cebu Coliseum.

Under the revised rule, the top-ranked teams will no longer enjoy twice-to-beat incentives during the semifinal round. Instead, the top four will play another single round robin with the top two slugging it out for the championship.

“We made this kind of change in order to give the teams a tougher and more exciting competition that would surely be a great challenge to the consistent top performers,” said CESAFI commissioner Felix “Boy” O. Tiukinhoy, Jr.

Tiukinhoy, on the other hand, bared that the CESAFI will reshuffle its tournament managers in the other events.

Tiukinhoy said this is being done as only two events - volleyball and football - were smoothly handled last year.

Tiukinhoy said he has already talked to Cebu Volleyball Association (CEVA) president Jun San Juan and former Cebu Football Association head Jonathan “Maxi” Maximo to run the respective events this year and he got positive feedbacks from them.

“I will be talking again to San Juan to discuss with him some matters in order to have a smooth sailing volleyball tournament this year and also with the appointment of the new tournament manager,” said Tiukinhoy.

“We had an initial conversation with Maximo and so far, he’s okay with it. He just have to finalize everything including his schedule before he confirms,” added Tiukinhoy.