The 2023 Filoil Ecooil Preseason Cup will have a huge 20-team field when it fires off on May 6 at the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
Besides having seven UAAP teams and all 10 NCAA squads, the Preseason Cup will also have both reigning UCBL champion Centro Escolar University and NAASCU king St. Clare College of Caloocan.
Also part of the field is NCAA South’s FAITH Colleges while University of Santo Tomas will be skipping this year’s tournament.
Scorpions head coach Jeff Perlas and Saints head coach Jinino Manansala confirmed the development to Tiebreaker Times.
CEU last joined the Preseason Cup back in 2019 while St. Clare was last part of the premier collegiate preseason tournament back in 2014.
The highest finish of the Scorpions came in 2014 as well, finishing third after beating CESAFI’s Southwestern University, 73-58, in the third place match.
Also part of the UAAP bracket are Ateneo, La Salle, UP, NU, Adamson, UE, and FEU.
On the other hand, the NCAA bracket will have all 10 member schools led by three-peat champion Letran, bridesmaid St. Benilde, and perennial contender San Beda.
Rounding out the pool are Lyceum, San Sebastian, Arellano, Perpetual, Mapua, Jose Rizal University, and Emilio Aguinaldo College.
Teams will undergo a round-robin format for the eliminations with only the top three teams in each bracket securing an outright quarterfinal berth.
The fourth-ranked teams from each group will still have a chance through the play-in games but they will have to go through the play-in games for the last two quarterfinal slots against Luzon representative Guang Ming College and the still-to-be-determined VisMin representative.
From there, the crossover knockout playoffs will take effect.
League chairman Rey Gamboa, commissioners Joe Lipa and Bert dela Rosa, tournament director Bennett Palad, media head and consultant Virgil Villavicencio, and marketing and finance head Diana Layug will spearhead the 16th edition of the Filoil tourney.
