THE REAL MVP? AKOWE WELCOMES FIRST-EVER BEST FSA AWARD WITH OPEN ARMS

BY Andrei Barrantes

FOR the second straight season, Collins Akowe steered NU-Nazareth School to an impressive run to the finals, doing so while logging dominant double-doubles on the daily.

The Nigerian powerhouse has averaged 20.8 points, 18.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.7 blocks thus far in UAAP Season 87.

What’s crazier? In the Bullpups' 15 games with just one loss, he had 13 double-doubles, six of which featured him having 20-plus points and 20-plus rebounds.

What’s craziest? Despite his absurd numbers, he will not be the Most Valuable Player.

PHOTO: UAAP Media Bureau

Instead, the top individual player trophy will go to De La Salle Zobel’s Kieffer Alas, who was the Jr. Archers’ best player by far, although they fell short of the Final Four.

READ: Kieffer Alas ends UAAP Season 87 out of Final Four - but as presumptive MVP

It’s not like Alas overtook Akowe in the rankings, however. Rather, NUNS' foreign student-athlete (FSA) was not qualified to win MVP to begin with.

From the start of the ongoing season, the league implemented a rule that ensures that only Filipinos will win the MVP award based on Statistical Points (SPs).

READ: New UAAP rule guarantees Filipinos will win MVP

As such, if an FSA ultimately comes out first in the SP race, the newly-introduced Best FSA award will be theirs.

"Actually, based on the statistical points, you can see I was the leader, right? So it’s a good feeling also even if I can’t win the MVP. Still, I was the first MVP and Best Foreign Student-Athlete, so it’s a good feeling," he graciously said.

While he will no longer become back-to-back MVP, Akowe was more than willing to take the acclaim of once again being a pioneer awardee in the juniors division.

Still, there remains a sting of being the best player on the best team, but not having the hardware to show for it.

"It is what it is. [The] UAAP knows why they did it. It’s their rule, it’s their system, and we’re in it. We’re playing in the UAAP, so it is what it is," he said.

"I guess it's for the homegrown, it's not for the [foreigners]. I think its newly-implemented, so we just gotta do by it," he added.

Eyes on the bigger prize

Despite the unfavorable turnout of the awards race, the 19 year old maintained that the MVP was never his ultimate goal to begin with.

As he put it, "It's not like the goal is to win the MVP. The goal is to win the championship."

PHOTO: UAAP Media Bureau

And rather than dwelling on what could have been, Akowe insisted on using this development as motivation for their upcoming finals showdown with University of Santo Tomas - the only team to have beaten them thus far in the tournament.

"It’s like fuel for me. They know who deserved the MVP, you know what I’m saying. Looking at the stats, looking at everything, but I actually don’t play for stats, I play for the team. It's not an individual sport, its a team sport," he said.

Like his demeanor on the court, the UAAP's first-ever Best FSA looked unfazed and focused on fulfilling their wish of redemption even if he did not get the personal accolade fitting of his dominant run.

The MVP award may not be his, but the championship still could be.

And by the looks of it, he won't let that one slip away.

2025-03-12T10:06:00Z