All eyes have been on Ateneo de Manila High School’s Kai Sotto in the UAAP 80 Juniors Basketball Tournament – but perhaps, most, it not all, of them should be on CJ Cansino.

University of Sto. Tomas’ shining star is, far and away, the frontrunner for MVP after the first round of eliminations.

Cansino has tallied 100.57 Statistical Points (SPs) built on per game counts of 27.6 points in 43.5 percent shooting, 14.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.7 steals.

With that, the Tiger Cub swingman leads the tally for top individual player by a whopping 26 points.

This, even though it has been Ateneo, and not UST, which remains undefeated and stands as title favorite.

A distant second is Sotto who registered 74.43 SPs on averages of 12.9 points in 52.5 percent shooting, 12.7 rebounds, and 4.9 blocks.

The 7-foot-1 towering teen has been the apple of the eye for many Filipinos, but most probably is one or two years away from being the standard for MVP.

Two other Blue Eaglets are behind him with SJ Belangel at third (69.00 SPs) and Dave Ildefonso (67.00 SPs) at fourth.

Rounding out the top five is first-year player Agem Miranda of University of the East whose award bid has been boosted by Nazareth School of National University’s forfeiture.

Also in the top 10 are Far Eastern University-Diliman’s L-Jay Gonzales and RJ Abarrientos, Adamson High School’s Jorem Sabandal, De La Salle Zobel’s Raven Cortez, and Bullpup Rhayyan Amsali.

This story was originally published on the ABS-CBN Sports website.