Ares tops Week 1 on Chook-to-Go Nat’l Basketball

Cebu Eastern College’s versatile forward Ivan Ares emerged as the top player in Week 1 of the Chooks-to-Go/National Basketball Training Center (NBTC) Cesafi 24 rankings.

Ares, the Dragons’ do-itall forward, scored 26 points, grabbed six rebounds and had two steals to lead CEC to a rout of the runners-up of the pre-season tournament, the University of Southern Philippines Foundation Baby Panthers, 71-51.

In the second spot is the University of San Carlos’ guard Clint Anthony Octaviano, who gathered 16 points, three rebounds, three assists and two steals in the Baby Warriors’ 69-56 win over the University of San Jose-Recoletos Baby Jaguars.

The Cebu Institute of Technology-University’s (CIT-U) Sol Jade Tirol also announced his arrival onto the local scene with an allaround stat line of 12 points, six rebounds and a whopping seven steals in the Wildkittens’ 61-51 defeat of the Southwestern University-Phinma Cobras.

Completing the top five are Khadshein Tagalog of USC and Brian Dave Santillan of SWU-Phinma.

Ranked sixth to tenth are USJR’s Brian Guibao, CIT-U’s Vincent Bugtai, USC’s Juan Raphael Garro, SWU-Phinma’s Kendall Limana and CEC’s Nick Galopen.

This year, there will be three separate editions of the Chooksto-Go/NBTC 24 – NCAA, UAAP, and the Cesafi to accommodate the entire juniors calendar.

For the first installment, all Cesafi players will be ranked and deliberated weekly. After all three editions, a final list composing the top 24 players nationwide will be chosen to participate in the annual NBTC All-Star Game in March.