Women's hoops continue to get share of spotlight in UAAP Season 86

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine women’s basketball is looking to maintain its upward momentum as collegiate action resumes in the UAAP this weekend.

Following the return of collegiate women’s hoops in UAAP Season 85 after a lengthy layoff during the pandemic, Deputy Commissioner Atty. Mariana Lopa expects the league to sustain a promising campaign last year.

“Coming off the pandemic, the expectations were very low for women’s basketball because we had hardly anything going on in the pandemic… You have to give it all to the players, they gave us a good season last year. The storylines were insane last year — we had the streak of NU broken at 108 straight wins and then we had two mythical players from UST, we had two from Ateneo which hadn’t happened in so long.” she said, as the pre-tournament press conference also featured the women’s teams for the first time ever. 

“During the offseason, the Gilas women represented us extremely well; also they came off two golds in the SEA Games and then a silver. And this is a country with no pro league, barely any following or support for women’s basketball. So what am I looking forward this coming season with this amount of support in terms of the girls being able to watch each other play, the girls being able to have their families watch them play, it’s a different level of excitement and I think motivation on the part of these girls to be able to put on good games this coming season,” Lopa added.

Member schools also expressed optimism in what they think will be a very competitive season, even as the NU Lady Bulldogs seek to maintain their dominance with an eight-peat bid for the women’s basketball crown.

Among those looking to make their mark are podium finishers De La Salle University and the University of Santo Tomas.

“For us, for this year we just lost four seniors coming into this season. Hopefully, we’ll be very competitive coming into this year and first reach the final four and then look forward from there,” said DLSU coach Cholo Villanueva.

His Lady Archers were the one who snapped NU’s win streak, and faced them in the two-game UAAP finals.

Meanwhile, Haydee Ong of the UST Growling Tigresses knows the competition will only get better from here.

“I think every season naman for women’s division every team improves lahat nagcocompete,” she said. 

“I think this Season 86 will be a competitive one for everybody and we are all excited to start the season on Sunday. We have to prepare for them each and every game.”

NU tactician Aris Dimaunahan, though, acknowledged it’s Ong’s Tigresses who he needs to be most wary of.

“To us, ang team to beat is still UST they got a great core of players and may naacquire pa silang player from La Salle which is [Kent] Pastrana. Us sa NU we lost five players due to graduation. I think UST is the team to beat this year and we’ll do our best to keep the championship sa school namin,” he said.

Women’s basketball action tips off Sunday with games happening at the Mall of Asia Arena and the UST Quadricentennial Pavilion in España.