The 2023 MPBL Preseason Invitational was the preseason pocket tournament for the

Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League The Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) is a men's regional professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of 30 teams. Founded in 2017 by eight-division boxing world champion and then-Senator Manny Pacquiao, the MPBL is ...

's 2023 season and the second edition of the MPBL Preseason Invitational. The tournament began February 21, 2023 and ended with the final game on February 27, 2023 when the

Zamboanga Family's Brand Sardines The Zamboanga Sikat (stylized as Zamboanga SiKAT), alternatively known as Sikat Zamboanga, is a Filipino professional basketball team based in Zamboanga City. The team currently competes in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) as a ...

beat the

Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards The Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards (shortened as NERV) are a Filipino professional basketball team based in Palayan, Nueva Ecija. The team competes in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) as a member of the league's North Division. The ...

, 88–80. Dexter Maiquez was crowned the tournament's MVP. The tournament was once again held at a single venue, this time being the Lagao Gymnasium in

General Santos General Santos, officially the City of General Santos and abbreviated as GenSan, is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Regions of the Philippines, region of Soccsksargen, Philippines. According to ...

, home of the

GenSan Warriors The GenSan Warriors are a Filipino professional basketball team based in General Santos. The team competes in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) as a member of the league's South Division. The team most recently played their home ...

, with a format is similar to that of the previous edition, albeit downsized to accommodate the smaller pool of teams.

Teams

A total of eight teams competed in the tournament. These include seven MPBL teams, as well as ''Bulalakaw'', a local team based in General Santos, as the league’s first-ever guest team. Making their first Invitational appearances were the

Batangas City Embassy Chill The Batangas City Tanduay Rum Masters are a professional basketball team based in Batangas City, Batangas. The team competes in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) as a member of the league's South Division. The team splits its h ...

(competing as the ''Batangas City Tanduay Rum Masters'') and

. ; Notes

Format

The tournament is divided into two stages: the group stage and the playoffs. The eight participating teams are divided into two groups of four. Both groups play in a single round-robin format, wherein each team plays one game against all other teams within the same group. The top two teams in each group advance to a two-round, single-elimination playoffs consisting of all knockout games. This time around, every team was given prize money based on their standings: ₱3 million for the champion, ₱500,000 for the runner-up, ₱300,000 for the third-place team, ₱200,000 for the fourth-place team, and ₱100,000 for all non-playoff teams.

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Playoffs

Bracket

Semifinals

Battle for Third

Finals

Media

This was the first MPBL Invitational under

Cignal TV Cignal TV, Inc. (formerly known as GV Broadcasting System), also known by its legal trading name Mediascape Inc., is a Filipino media and telecommunications firm in the Philippines. A wholly owned subsidiary of the media company MediaQuest Ho ...

's ongoing broadcast partnership with the league. The games were broadcast on

One PH One PH (stylized as one Ph) is a 24/7 Tagalog-language teleradio news channel owned by MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. through Cignal TV. It was soft launched on February 18, 2019 and was officially launched on July 31, 2019, on satellite provider C ...

and

One Sports+ One Sports (formerly ABC Sports from 2004 to 2008, Sports5 from 2011 to 2017 and ESPN5 from 2017 to 2020) is the sports division of TV5 Network, Inc. and jointly-operated with sister company Cignal TV. One Sports supplies and airs major spo ...

on television. The league streamed all of the games online on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

References

{{2023 MPBL season by team

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

Preseason Invitational