Men's collegiate basketball in particular, and intercollegiate athletics in general is fragmented in the Philippines.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (Philippines) and University Athletic Association of the Philippines are the Metro Manila leagues that receive the most attention, owing to their national television coverage, with the UAAP in particular described as the country's "premier and more popular league". The biggest league outside the region is CESAFI.
This list is limited to the two major Metro Manila leagues, the Cebuano leagues, along with the two major intercollegiate offseason leagues (Filoil and PCCL) which include schools from other associations such as CESAFI in Cebu and NAASCU which is mainly based in Manila. The respective NCAA and UAAP schools have jumped between the two leagues and regularly hold the following intercollegiate tournaments. For 13 out of 21 seasons, champions from mainly Filoil, or occasionally PCCL tournaments, have gone on to win the championship in their respective home leagues.
After 1930, when UST won its only NCAA title, UST, UP, FEU, and NU left the NCAA to form a Big Three League of the top sports schools which also attained university status, that later officially became the UAAP in 1938.
The makeup of both collegiate leagues was finalized in 1980 with the last remnants of the founding NCAA members leaving for the UAAP in Ateneo (left NCAA and joined UAAP in 1978) and La Salle (left NCAA in 1980, joined UAAP in 1986), along with San Beda, who returned to the NCAA after a short hiatus in 1984. The CAAA continued throughout the era.
The UAAP adopted the Final Four format in 1993 while the NCAA followed suit in 1997. The CESAFI replaced the CAAA in 2001-02.
The Philippine Collegiate Champions League (PCCL) was established in 2003 while the Filoil EcoOil Preseason Cup was inaugurated as the Homegrown Cup in 2006.
The PCCL tournament was canceled due to the pandemic.