Foreign squads join NBTC tilt

NBTC execs Alex Compton, Eric Altamirano and Ato Badolato along with NBTC All-Stars. Photo by Bong Lozada

Two foreign teams look to challenge the country’s top high school players when the SM-National Basketball Training Center (NBTC) League gets going from March 13 to 17 at Mall of Asia Arena.

Durham Crossover Basketball from Canada and Trail International School from Thailand, both fielding players with Filipino roots, will join the last 22 teams standing in the sudden-death round and in the All-Star match.

Defending champion Sacred Heart-Ateneo de Cebu and runner-up San Beda lead the finalists of the nationwide tournament that started with 700 high schools.

“This is our way of honoring the best of the best high school players in the country,” said NBTC program director Eric Altamirano.

Now on its fifth year, the program will feature for the first time Filipino high school players seeing action overseas, who may be interested to play college basketball in the country.

“We thought of including foreign teams since we wanted to widen the talent identification process,” Altamirano said. “One of the objectives of the program is to identify talent and prepare them for a higher level of basketball.”