Twenty student-athletes were present for University of Santo Tomas during its photoshoot with the UAAP’s TV partner Cignal.
Photo from One Sports
Fifteen of those are locks, headlined by holdovers from the Growling Tigers of Season 82 in Sherwin Concepcion and Dave Ando.
Also there were the likes of Bryan Santos, Jordi Gomez de Liano, Joshua Fontanilla, Paul Manalang, Christian Manaytay, Migs Pangilinan, and Bryan Samudio.
Completing the 15 were Jamba Garing, Royce Mantua, JJ Gesalem, Ivan Lazarte, Nic Cabanero, and Ian Herrera.
Many asked, where was UST’s foreign student-athlete Adama Faye?
Apparently, he has left the country as early as January.
According to multiple sources closely monitoring the situation, Faye asked the school if he could go back to his home country of Senegal to renew his passport. In good faith, the school allowed him to.
After a few weeks, the school and team officials decided to call him back to ask when he would return.
The answer they got surprised them. Faye was requesting “something extra” for him to come back.
Of course, the school denied the request of the 6-foot-8 big man and will instead field an all-Filipino team for the Season 84 tournament which begins on March 26.
Faye, who served his residency a couple of years ago, was supposed to replace Soulemane Chabi Yo for this season. The reigning UAAP Most Valuable Player decided to sign with a Spanish club last November.
It will be a tall climb for UST as the only big men left in their lineup are Ando, Santos, Herrera, Manaytay, and Concepcion.
UST and University of the East are the two schools that will not have FSAs in their lineup this season.
The Growling Tigers are still deliberating on who their final 20 will be.
