The Basketball Unified Sports Group has banned St. John's Institute from all its age-group tournaments after the school dropped out from the Panasonic Cup Under-17 Basketball Tournament set on March 17 at Po Hang gym of Bacolod Tay Tung High School, a press release from the BUS Group said.

The ban will start with the Group's Under-14 summer competition.

The press release said league organizer Bing Soyao has expressed his dismayed over the school's withdrawal from the tournament after assuring organizers that it will field two squads.

But Dennis Coo, a member of the SJI board of trustees, denied committing their teams to join the tournaments.

"We did not commit to field any team for their tournaments. The parents of the players want to take a vacation for the summer so we can't join the 14-Under tournament," he said.

He added that four of their players were also picked to represent Western Visayas in the Palarong Pambansa in April. "Our team is very depleted, if we join the summer tournament," Coo added.

Coo also said that they cannot field any team for the Under-17 tournament because the SJI school-year will end late March.

Though their school was not invited to attend the BUSG meetings, Coo said they were able to send a representative, Arman Suarez, in the meetings.

Coo said they have are "okay" with the BUSG's decision to ban the SJI.

BUSG's Henry Doble said that the incident marked the third time that SJI snubbed the organization's invitation after showing signs of joining only to back out at the last minute.

Nine squads namely, defending champion University of St. La Salle, Mansilingan Christian Academy, Trinity Christian School, St. Benilde School, Don Bosco Technical Institute, Stallions, St. Rose of Lima School, Tangub Christian Academy, and University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos have confirmed their participation in the 17-Under tournament.* PP

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