Explore the origins of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and its roots in the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), a key predecessor that shaped professional basketball in the Philippines.
![basketball representation image [Photo by Kylie Osullivan on Unsplash]](https://sportsbytes.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/kylie-osullivan-BfaBLVCBTI8-unsplash-400x200.jpg)
The 1978 MICAA tournament got off to an auspicious start on January 8, 1978, when one of the inaugural games, the one between Refrigeration Industries and Imperial Textile Mills (ITM) was marred with controversy.
![Manny Paner [screen capture from The Freeman]](https://sportsbytes.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot_2433-400x200.png)
On July 23, 1973, the San Miguel Braves snapped the Yco Painters’ nine-game winning streak with an 89-81 win in the MICAA basketball tournament in front of about 8,000 fans at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.
Exactly 50 years ago on December 19, the music died. On that fateful day of December 19, 1971, the festive local basketball scene was rocked by the physical mauling of a pair of referees in an All-Filipino game in the Manila Industrial Commercial and Athletic Association (MICAA).
The late Calvo is lone Filipino who is enshrined in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Hall of Fame.
Believe it or not, there have been a few instances in Philippine basketball history where a renowned athlete did not shoot the rock with his natural hand, meaning he grew up as a left-hander but subsequently turned to his right when playing ball.
It was the Crispa-Floro Redmanizers and the Toyota Comets/Tamaraws that romanticized PH basketball for more than a decade.
The creation of a professional league, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), in April 1975 altered the landscape of the country’s basketball history locally and internationally.
In local sports, the date April 9 also is special to hoops fans. A momentous occasion moment it was forty-six years ago on that day for it marked the birth of professional basketball in the Philippines.
Who would have thought that something hanky-panky was going on in local ball when most of us Filipinos were quite apprehensive and living in fear because men in uniform were roaming everywhere in the streets?