10 January 2019
CEBU CITY—The Sisters of Mary School (SMS)-Boystown and SMS Girlstown will try to make it to the record books when the Chooks to Go SBP 3X3 Basketball Tournament fires off this weekend in SMS Boystown Campus in Minglanilla town, southern Cebu.
Scheduled on January 12 to 13, the tournament will have close to 3,000 students of the SMS Girlstown and Boystown who will compete in the boys and girls under-18 divisions.
The Boystown will have 1,100 students divided into 277 teams, while the Girlstown will have 1,588 players divided into 397 squads. The tournament, which will be held at the Boystown’s 50 outdoor courts, could be the world’s biggest three-on-three basketball tournament.
Expected to grace the tournament to conduct a basketball clinic are rising amateur cagers Kobe Paras of the University of the Philippines and in Thirdy Ravena of the Ateneo de Manila Blue Eagles.
“We don’t have the exact figures of the existing record but we already received a communication someone from Fiba that if we pulled off successfully, this could be the biggest in terms of the number participants,” Rico Navarro, regional director of the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas (SBP), said in a press conference last Wednesday.
The tournament will have a total of 952 games. There will be four leg champions and one overall champion in each division.
“I did not expect that we can stage this tournament. It took a lot of effort to finalize everything and we are happy with the support given by the schools, Chooks to Go and SBP,” said SMS athletic director Van Halen Parmis.
Parmis said he came up with the idea of staging the tournament after the SMS Boystown defeated the highly touted Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu in the Central Visayas finals of the SBP Under 18 Pambansang Tatluhan last September.
“This tournament is part of our goal to really expose the SMS students to sports,” said Parmis.
Also giving a huge support to the tournament is the Cebu Provincial Sports Commission (CPSC).
“SMS is the beneficiary our sports development program. We felt privileged that we are able to contribute to the development of these kids,” said CPSC Executive Director Atty. Ramil Abing.
Bounty Agro Ventures, Inc. executive Alfred Espina said that Chooks to Go never hesitated to support the event as part of the company’s mission to contribute to the country’s sports development.
Follow the writer on Twitter: @burnsports
