Manalili, Cortez seen as major forces in their leagues
Philippine collegiate basketball saw the rise of two young stars last year, with Jacob Cortez helping La Salle to the Season 88 men’s title in the UAAP and Jonathan Manalili taking Letran all the way to the Finals of NCAA Season 101.
They came from different paths, with Cortez having the surname of an ex-PBA star father that gave him some sort of reputation as being good already and Manalili practically scrounging for spots on a team back in his native Cebu.
With Cortez, expectations were high. And he delivered on the first chance he got after leading the Green Archers past the UP Fighting Maroons in a December thriller of a UAAP title series to remember.
Manalili, on the other hand, was just awestruck at what he had so far achieved as an NCAA rookie, as he traced his roots back to the days when he was a water boy for teams, an opportunity he used to be able to watch games and eventually try to do what the players were doing.
“I can’t even imagine that this amount of people would see (me play),” Manalili had said after Letran reached the Finals at the expense of Perpetual Help, as the Final Four of his league played before massive crowds.
He then tells how he got into games while he was a boy: “I’ll buy water [for teams] and persevere by just watching their games and see what I could get from (the players) during the games.”
Manalili won Rookie and Freshman of the Year honors after posting averages of 14.087 points, 8.92 assists and 5.15 rebounds per game and young Letran coach Allen Ricardo can’t help but be awed by the potential that his ward has.
“The future’s bright for Jonathan (and) the future’s bright for these Letran Knights,” Ricardo had said despite being swept by bitter rival San Beda in their best-of-three series. “We’ll come back stronger next year.”
And while many may think that Cortez is carrying a lot of weight playing for La Salle and trying to gift the Archers a title the way his father Mike did in his heyday, the talented guard was quick to dismiss that.
“No pressure, no pressure at all,” he told the Inquirer when he was asked about living up to what Mike used to do for La Salle. “My dad doesn’t really tell me much.”
