Indian women failed to get into their groove as world no.2, Asia's best and hosts China handed them a sound 58-point drubbing (53-111) in the last league game of 5x5 basketball tournament of Asian Games on Sunday.
Despite losing their last league game, India progressed to the quarterfinals as the second-best team in pool A after they won their initial two outings against Indonesia and Mongolia, respectively.
Against the mighty Chinese outfit, India took three minutes to open their account and were unable to defend as the home team made most of the lapses to dominate the first quarter by as many as 31 points (38-7).
In the second quarter, India did well to boost their morale by scoring 19 points as against 20 but were unable to match the lead as China took a handy 32-point advantage at the break.
After halftime, China outplayed India 32-13 and 21-14 in the third and fourth quarters respectively to record a thumping 111-53 victory.
For India, Pushpa Senthil Kumar and Sanjana Ramesh netted identical 14 points while skipper Shireen Limaye added 12 as others failed to score in double digits.
While China outrebounded India 59-33, they scored as many as 23 points from turnovers and netted 22 unanswered points on their way to clinch the clash with ease.
