The MPBL has never looked quite like this.
Season 8 of the SportsPlus MPBL tips off on Friday, April 10, with simultaneous double-headers at the Caloocan Sports Complex and the Alonte Sports Arena in Biñan, Laguna—and the storyline heading in is not just about the defending champions or the title race. It is about the wave of collegiate talent hitting the country’s biggest regional league all at once.
With the PBA Draft pushed back to 2027, this year’s MPBL crop is unlike any before it. The biggest names in recent Philippine collegiate basketball are suiting up for Season 8, and the league is better for it.
Mike Phillips Headlines the Class
No arrival carries more weight than Mike Phillips. The 6-foot-8 former Gilas Pilipinas member and UAAP Season 88 Finals MVP joins the San Juan Knights alongside a loaded supporting cast—ex-UP Fighting Maroons Harold Alarcon, Terrence Fortea, Gerry Abadiano, and Reyland Torres, former San Beda Red Lion Jomel Puno, and one-time Perpetual Help Altas players Patrick Sleat, Jearico Nunez, and JP Boral.
San Juan opens against the Pasay Voyagers on Friday at 5 p.m. in Caloocan, and on paper, it is not a contest. Pasay will lean on Christian Fajarito, former NU Bulldogs Steve Nash Enriquez and Mark Parks, and ex-Mapua Cardinal CJ Gonzales. The Knights, with Phillips at the center of everything, are heavy favorites.
Harold Alarcon and the UP Core Find a New Home
The UP Fighting Maroons’ core that gave Philippine collegiate basketball some of its most memorable moments in recent years is now scattered across the MPBL—and San Juan landed the bulk of them. Alarcon, Fortea, Torres, and Abadiano bring winning pedigree and chemistry that most MPBL rosters simply cannot match. They know how to play with each other. That matters.
Caloocan’s Ateneo Core and the Rest of the Field
San Juan is not the only team that raided the collegiate ranks. The Caloocan Batang Kankaloo open against the Quezon City Black Bulls at 7 p.m. on Friday, led by former La Salle star Kean Baclaan and former Ateneo Blue Eagles Dom Escobar and Kymani Ladi. Quezon City counters with Pat Buena, Jake Agoncillo, and veteran Rey Publico—but Caloocan is the favorite.
Other notable fresh faces making their MPBL debuts this season include Ateneo’s Tucker Molina with Abra, Adamson’s Cedric Manzano and UE’s John Abate with Quezon Province, NU’s Jolo Mendoza also with Quezon Province, and Mapua’s Drex delos Reyes and JC Recto suiting up for Abra and Mindoro, respectively. There’s also former UST Growling Tiger Nic Cabañero, who was among the first to take his talents to the MPBL by way of Biñan.
The Defending Champions Are Still Here
The youth movement is the story—but do not forget about Abra. The reigning national champions swept the 2026 MPBL Preseason Invitational and have bolstered their already formidable roster with DJ Fenner, Jake Figueroa, Kascius Small-Martin, Joel Cagulangan, and 6-foot-8 Drex delos Reyes joining MVP Dave Ildefonso, Raven Gonzales, and Encho Serrano. Everyone else is chasing them—and now they know exactly who is coming.
Season 8 tips off with 28 teams across two divisions and a format that runs through a single round-robin elimination before the top eight from each division advance to the playoffs. The North and South divisional titlists will eventually meet in a best-of-seven national championship series.
It is going to be a long season. It is already an interesting one.
