This rivalry is between Recto's San Sebastian and Muralla's Letran. The rivalry is played at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (Philippines).
The Knights became the first 4th seed to upset the 1st seed in the Final Four when they defeated the Stags twice during the 1999 NCAA Final Four. That feat would soon be duplicated the following year when the 4th seed Stags upended top seed JRC Heavy Bombers in the 2000 NCAA Final Four. The Knights went on to win the 1999 NCAA championship.
Head-to-head record by sport
Seniors' Division
General Championship Letran leads the General Championship race with 9–4.NCAA Philippines – Championships Letran (9) – 1979–80, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2002–03, 2003–04, 2009–10 San Sebastian (4) – 1984–85, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1994–95
Juniors' Division
General Championship Letran leads the general championship race with 7–6. Letran (7) – 1983, 1986, 1987, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 San Sebastian (6) – 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
Basketball Statistics
Men's basketball results After both Ateneo and La Salle left, San Sebastian (frequently shortened to "Baste") strengthened their basketball program. The recruitment of Paul Alvarez by San Sebastian and Samboy Lim by Letran provided several close games in the 1980s which led to the birth of the rivalry.
In the 1980s, Letranites were notorious for yelling profanities at the San Sebastian players, and on one occasion, led to a rumble at Vito Cruz Avenue when at the last second, a power interruption occurred, causing confusion on what team won the championship. The rumbles between the two schools have become more frequent which solidified the intense rivalry between the two schools.Stags, Knights begin NCAA best-of-three title series today The Manila Times (Google archive). September 17, 2003, issue Paul Alvarez would later play for the Pennsylvania Valley Dawgs of the United States Basketball League.Alvarez in listless USBL debut INQ7.net. April 3, 2006
The final four was instituted in 1997; prior to that the first and second round winners, plus the team with the best overall standing if it did not win either round, participated in the championship round to determine the champion.
The rivalry continued in the turn of the millennium when the Stags met the Knights in the finals twice. This led to several memorable games in which the Knights won the 1998 edition with a barrage of three-pointers and free way ows by Letran's Nicholas Pacheco with a few seconds remaining to win their 13th championship. The Knights also became the first 4th seed to upset the 1st seed in the Final Four when they defeated the Stags twice during the 1999 NCAA Final Four. That feat would soon be duplicated the following year when the 4th seed Stags upended top seed JRC Heavy Bombers in the 2000 NCAA Final Four. The Knights went on to win the 1999 NCAA championship. In the 2003 NCAA Finals, the Stags (defending champs) made a rally in the 4th quarter in the 3rd game of their series and kept Letran scoreless for almost 6 minutes that led them to take the lead but Boyet Bautista started the comeback by tying the game at 48-all and then his teammates Jonathan Piñera and Aaron Aban finished the game to win their 15th championship at the expense of the Stags. In 2004, they renewed their rivalry in the second round of eliminations wherein Letran denied Baste's Final 4 hopes and eventually broke their streak of Final Four appearances (since the inception of the final four format in 1998 San Sebastian is always in the Final Four) making it their worst performance in 6 years.
In 2009, Letran ended San Sebastian's 15 winning streak as they gave out the Stags' first loss of the season, and the Knights prevented the Golden Stags from sweeping the 18 game elimination round to qualify outright in the Finals
In 2010, Letran gave San Sebastian a scare as the Stags escaped the Knights with a one-point lead.and The Stags put the Knights in the brink of elimination
In 2011, Letran once again ended the Stags' 15-game winning streak and gave its first loss of the season via overtime.
In 2012, Letran swept the series against San Sebastian at the elimination round. With the Stags had a twice-to-beat advantage over the Knights, Letran once again beat San Sebastian to force another game as Kevin Alas scored 43 points, in the do-or-die game, Letran came back in the fourth quarter to beat the Stags, 73–70, eliminating the Stags from the Finals contention versus San Beda.
In 2017, Both schools met in the playoffs for the first time since 2013 but this time in a hard way with Lyceum sweeping the regular season 18–0 and automatically advances to the finals. 3 teams tied for the number 4 seed in the stepladder semifinals with San Sebastian had the highest quotient among the 3 against Letran and Arellano with the latter 2 needed to figure it out in a knock out match (in which Letran won) in the right to face against San Sebastian. In the proper 4th-seed playoff game, San Sebastian's Michael Calisaan scored a season-high and a career-high double double performance of 36 points and 10 rebounds to eliminate Letran anew with a score of 74–69(with the Golden Stags scoring the last 5 points including a 3-point shot going into regulation that put away the game from the Knights) to advanced to the 1st round of the stepladder semifinals facing off against the JRU Heavy Bombers.
In 2019, With San Beda sweeping the regular season 18–0, gaining an outright finals berth and forcing the post season into a stepladder format. Both teams faced off in the 1st round of the stepladder semifinals with Letran winning the game 85–80(as the Knights survived a late 4th quarter scare from San Sebastian after the Stags cut the deficit into a 1-point game heading into regulation) to advanced to the 2nd round against the Lyceum Pirates (in which Letran also won 92–88) enrouting to their Cinderella run against the San Beda Red Lions, and winning the championship. Pre-Final Four era
Final Four era Both teams are expected to meet at least 2 times per year.
Notes
Juniors' Basketball Results Pre-Final Four era
Final Four era Both teams are expected to meet at least 2 times per year.
Notes
Final Four Rankings For comparison, these are the rankings of these two teams since the Final Four format was introduced.
Seniors' division A.Y. Letran San Sebastian 1997–1998 3rd 1st 1998–1999 1st 2nd 1999–2000 4th 1st 2000–2001 7th 4th 2001–2002 6th 2nd 2002–2003 6th 1st 2003–2004 1st 2nd 2004–2005 3rd 6th 2005–2006 1st 4th 2006–2007 3rd 7th 2007–2008 2nd 5th 2008–2009 3rd 5th 2009–2010 4th 1st 2010–2011 5th 2nd 2011–2022 3rd 1st 2012–2013 3rd 2nd 2013–2014 2nd 3rd 2014–2015 6th 8th 2015–2016 2nd 8th 2016–2017 6th 7th 2017–2018 5th 4th 2018–2019 3rd 6th 2019–2020 3rd 4th 2021–2022 1st 8th 2022–2023 2nd 5th 2023–2024 9th 8th 2024–2025 6th 9th
Juniors' division A.Y. Letran San Sebastian 1997–1998 1998–1999 4th 1999–2000 4th 2000–2001 1st 2001–2002 1st 2002–2003 6th 2nd 2003–2004 2nd 5th 2004–2005 2nd 5th 2005–2006 7th 1st 2006–2007 7th 1st 2007–2008 2nd 1st 2008–2009 2nd 1st 2009–2010 2nd 3rd' 2010–2011 4th 2nd 2011–2022 2nd 6th 2012–2013 4th 2nd 2013–2014 6th 2nd 2014–2015 6th 8th 2015–2016 2nd 8th 2016–2017 6th 7th 2017–2018 5th 4th 2018–2019 3rd 6th 2019–2020 3rd 4th 2021–2022 1st 8th 2022–2023 2nd 5th 2023–2024 9th 8th 2024–2025 6th 9th
Team ╲ Year 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 1 21 1 3 262268105 83CC533 411 6527722242463 7639712 Legend
Notes
Volleyball Statistics Men's volleyball results
Notes
Women's volleyball results Letran and San Sebastian competed at the NCAA Women's Volleyball Finals in Seasons 82 and 86.
Notes
See also San Sebastian Stags National Collegiate Athletic Association (Philippines) San Beda–Letran rivalry San Beda–San Sebastian rivalry Battle of Intramuros JRU–San Sebastian rivalry Ateneo–La Salle rivalry La Salle–UST rivalry
References
External links NCAA historical results NCAA Season 85 Schedules and Results NCAA Season 86 Schedules and Results Google News Archive Manila Bulletin Online Newspaper Archive The LANCE – Letran College