Metropolitan Basketball Association
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA) or Metroball was a professional basketball league in the Philippines founded in 1998.
The MBA overtook the Philippine Basketball Association's (PBA) plans on regionalization when the league adopted a home-and-away format where teams, instead of representing companies, represented a particular city, province or island in the country. The league brought basketball closer to the people, and it raided the PBA for talent.
However, the league folded on 2002 due to extremely high expenses on funding a regional basketball league, and most especially when broadcast parnter ABS-CBN withdrew funding for the league. Several players went to the semi-professional Philippine Basketball League en route to the PBA.
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[edit] Season format
The MBA has a season similarly styled to that of the National Basketball Association. The teams are grouped into two conferences: Northern (Luzon and Metro Manila) and Southern (Visayas/Mindanao).
The MBA had adopted several methods of determining its champion. The season concludes with the MBA Finals, where the Northern Conference champion faces the Southern Conference champion to decide the MBA Championship.
[edit] Teams
[edit] Northern Conference
- Batangas Blades (1998-2002; team merged with Manila in 2001)
- Laguna Lakers (1998-2001; team abandoned the league after their owners FedEx joined the PBA in 2002)
- Manila Metrostars (1998-2001; team merged with Batangas in 2001)
- Nueva Ecija Patriots (1999-2001)
- Olongapo Volunteers (2002)
- Pampanga Dragons/Stars (1998-2000; 2002)
- Pangasinan Presidents/Waves (1998-1999)
- Pasig-Rizal Pirates (1998-2000)
- San Juan Knights (1998-2001)
[edit] Southern Conference
- Cebu Gems (1998-2002)
- Davao Eagles (1998-2002)
- Cagayan de Oro Amigos/Nuggets (1998-2000; 2002)
- Iloilo Megavoltz/Volts (1998-2000)
- Negros (Bacolod City) Slashers (1998-2002)
- SoCSarGen Marlins (1998-2001; team renamed as the Socsargen Taguig Marlins in 2001 when the team played its home games in Taguig)
- Surigao Miners/Warriors (1999-2000)
[edit] MBA Most Valuable Players
| Season | Player | Team | College |
| 1998 | John Ferriols | Negros | USJ-R |
| 1999 | Alex Compton | Manila | Cornell |
| 2000 | Rommel Adducul | Batangas | SSC-R |
| 2001 | Eddie Laure | Batangas | Adamson |
[edit] MBA Champions
| Season | Northern Conference | Southern Conference | Series |
| 1998 | Pampanga Dragons | Negros Slashers | 4-1 |
| 1999 | Manila MetroStars | Cebu Gems | 4-2 |
| 2000 | San Juan Knights | Negros Slashers | 4-2 |
| 2001 | Batangas Blades | Negros Slashers | 3-1 |
| 2002 | Batangas Blades | Negros Slashers | 0-3 |
[edit] Rivalries
- Manila-Cebu - Seen as a rivalry of two basketball hotbeds in the Philippines. Both teams played the first MBA game on March 6, 1998 in Pangasinan with Metrostars defeating the Gems. Manila and Cebu also entangled in a regular season match in August 1999 with escaping a nail-biting win that preserved their record 23-game winning streak. Manila later defeated Cebu in the 1999 MBA National Finals. Cebu bounced back, defeating Manila to win the 2000 MBA Interconference tournament.
- Negros-Cebu - A rivalry of both teams from the Visayas region, and also in the MBA Visayas Division. The Slashers defeated the Gems 4-3 in the 1998 MBA Southern Conference Finals, after Negros trailed 1-3 in the series. The Gems bounced back in the 1999 Southern Conference semis by defeating the Gems. A game during the series was halted and restarted a week later, due to physical play and fan behavior. Negros bounced back in 2000, defeating Cebu in the Southern finals.
- Davao-Cebu - A Southern Conference rivalry, had a game in 1998 halted due to physical play while fans pelted the court with debris.
- Pasig-San Juan - A Northern Conference rivalry between between both nearby Metro Manila cities. Probably the most intense rivalry in MBA history, with games being halted with fights from both players on the court and rival fans in attendance. Pasig-Rizal defeated San Juan to win the 1999 MBA Northern Division Two title and also eliminated the Knights in the 1999 Northern Conference semifinals.
[edit] Trivia
- The Manila Metrostars set a league record in 1999 by winning 22 consecutive games during the elimination round, en route to a 26-4 record and the MBA National Championship. The record was also seen by many as the most in Philippine professional basketball history, breaking the PBA's Crispa Redmanizers' record of 19 consecutive victories in 1980.
- Felix Belano of the Davao Eagles is the only player to record a quadruple-double in MBA history (if a player records a double-figure numbers in four categories such as points, rebounds, assists, blocks or steals) during a game against the Nueva Ecija Patriots in 1999. Belano is currently playing for the Talk N' Text Phone Pals in the PBA.
| Basketball in the Philippines | |
|---|---|
| Philippines national basketball team Philippine Centennial Team • Philippines Dream Team • San Miguel Philippines |
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| Federations | BAP • PB • SBP |
| Professional leagues | PBA • NBC • MBA |
| Amateur leagues | PBL • MVBA • CBF • URBL • MICAA |
| Collegiate leagues | Metro Manila: CUSA • NAASCU • NCAA • NCAA South • NCRAA • UAAP • UCAA • WNCAA |
| Luzon: BEAL • NECUAA • UCAP | |
| Visayas: CESAFI • ISAA • NOPSSCEA | |
| Mindanao: PRISAA | |
| Off-season: CCL • HAIL • Homegrown Cup | |
| Men's champions • Team nicknames | |
