Five players bid UAAP farewell

MANILA, Philippines — Five players in their last year of UAAP eligibility will go all out to mark a memorable sendoff in the best-of-three Finals between defending champion La Salle and UP starting tomorrow at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Ending their college careers are UP’s JD Cagulangan and Quentin Millora-Brown and La Salle’s Lian Ramiro, Josh David and Isaiah Phillips. Brown and Ramiro are one-and-done players. Cagulangan and David were La Salle junior teammates but are now on opposite sides. Phillips, 24, is on his second season but will be over the age limit next year.

Brown, 24, played a year at Rice University in Houston, three years at Vanderbilt University in Nashville after sitting out a season to establish residence then a year at The Citadel, a military school in Charleston, entering the transfer portal as a graduate student. Overall, he played five years of NCAA D1 basketball and spent six years in college, the most overseas experience of any player ever in the UAAP. The 6-10, 245-pound center started in 125 of 155 total D1 outings, closing his US career in 2023-24 by averaging 11.2 points and 9.4 rebounds, shooting .594 from the floor. He earned a mechanical engineering degree at Vanderbilt. In the UAAP, Brown is averaging 8.6 points and 10.1 rebounds, hitting .561 from the field.  His mother Rosette Millora is Filipina.

Ramiro, 22, was born in Colorado to Filipino parents Anson and Jeaneth. The 5-11 point guard averaged 13.9 points in three years at Colorado State Pueblo and one year at University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, both D2 schools. In the UAAP, he’s hitting at a 2.7 clip and .333 from three-point distance.

Cagulangan and David, both 24, were on the Green Hills squad that won the NCAA juniors crown in 2017. As freshmen in the men’s division, David was relegated to La Salle’s Team B while Cagulangan hardly saw action under coach Jermaine Byrd. Cagulangan left La Salle, enrolled at St. Clare then moved to UP.  David has battled through injuries and now, he›s on his second straight Finals against his former teammate. 

Phillips has an amateur boxing background and plans to try out for the Philippine boxing team as a heavyweight. His younger brother Mike has one more year of eligibility at La Salle while older brother Ben has graduated.