CHENNAI
Nine-time champion Tamil Nadu combined individual brilliance with clinical team-work to script a convincing 99-71 win over Uttarakhand in a Group-C men’s contest of the senior National basketball championships here on Tuesday.
With this victory, Tamil Nadu qualified for the second round to be held on Wednesday and Thursday. Similarly, the host’s women’s side, too, advanced by finishing behind topper Indian Railways in Group-A.
Generally, contests between Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu are filled with action and intensity. However on the day, it was anything but that as Tamil Nadu ran riot.
Flawless Bek
From Muin Bek, who was flawless with his three-pointers and lay-ups, to A. Aravind and Aravind Kumar and from P. Jeevanantham to P. Baladhaneswar, everyone contributed in equal measure. For Uttarakhand, barring Arjun Singh (19) who was consistent with his three-pointers, the rest failed to rise to the occasion.
The eight teams (top four in each group) in men and women made the next round and matches on Wednesday and Thursday will determine the quarterfinalists.
The results:
Men: Group A: Punjab 96 (Kanwar Singh 23, Amritpal Singh 14, Manjot Singh 13, Amjyot Singh 10) bt Telangana 58 (Nikhil Saikumar 10, Billa Nathan 15).
B: Karnataka 69 (Abhishek Gowda 11, Shashank Rai 14, Pratyanshu Tomar 12, Harish Muthu 11) bt Rajasthan 44 (Ashish Trivedi 14); Services 88 (Joginder Singh 18, Gaurav Chandel 16, Nikhil Kumar 24) bt Uttar Pradesh 64 (Tushal Singh 14, Akash Bhasin 11, Kushal Singh 10, Harsh Dagar 10).
C: Tamil Nadu 99 (Siva Balan 12, Arvind Kumar 26, P. Jeevanantham 13, A. Aravind 12) bt Uttarakhand 71 (Vishesh Brighuvamshi 10, Arjun Singh 19, Prashant Rawat 15, Riyanshu Negi 20).
Women: Group-A: Indian Railways 120 (Madhu Kumari 22, Poonam Chaturvedi 11, Avanti Vardhan 18, Sruthi Arvind 22, Shireen Vijay Limya 13, Vaishnavi Yadav 11) bt Delhi 66 (Raspreet Sidhu 26); Tamil Nadu 89 (A. Ashmita 10, K. Sathya 15, S. Rajeshwari 21, Monica Jeyasali 15) bt Maharashtra 68 (Sakshi Pandey 25, Avya 16).
