31st Youth National Basketball Championship – Day Four: Favourites through to Knockouts

Karnataka (red) player attempts to drive in as he is met in mid-air by a Madhya Pradesh (white) player.

Chandigarh, 10^th October 2014: The Delhi boys continue their unbeaten streak in this year’s youth national basketball championship with a comfortable 88-50 win over the Andhra Pradesh team today morning. The Delhi boys have now topped their pool and have qualified to the quarterfinals. The Haryana boys have also booked a berth in the quarterfinals with their 92-74 win over Maharashtra. The other team through to the quarterfinals in the boys category is local favourite, Punjab.

Among the girls’ teams, 2013 winners Kerala have remained unbeaten thus far and registered another win today, thrashing Punjab 61-23. Last year’s runners up, Tamil Nadu also picked up an easy 73-52 win against Madhya Pradesh, on the basis of a complete team effort. Both Kerala and Tamil Nadu have made it through to the quarterfinals. Dark horses Karnataka defeated Maharashtra 73-61 today and have also qualified to the quarters. The Chhattisgarh girls are the fourth team through to the quarterfinals, thus far, in the girls category after their win against Haryana today, 82-45. These four girls’ teams were expected to qualify and have not disappointed. However, it would be interesting to see how the rest of the quarterfinal line-up develops.

A complete list of results of the matches held up to 5.30 p.m. on 10^th October 2014 is as follows:

Girls: 

1. Kerala (Nivya Raj 21) bt Punjab (Avneet Kaur 13) 61-23 (12-4, 29-3, 11-7, 9-9)
2. Andhra Pradesh (Sharom 31) bt Chandigarh (Amrit 20) 68-66 (5-8, 14-18, 21-19, 8-21)
3. Delhi (Mansi Tyagi 18) bt Himachal Pradesh (Sakshi Thakur 11) 50-27 (14-12, 17-3, 12-7, 7-5)
4. Karnataka (Lopamudra T. 20) bt Maharashtra (Shruti Sherigar 15) 73-61 (24-12, 19-13, 17-17, 13-19)
5. Tamil Nadu (Ishwarya J. 16) bt Madhya Pradesh (Sakshi 24) 73-52 (24-12, 20-11, 21-13, 8-16)
6. Chhattisgarh (Megha Singh 19) bt Haryana (Surya 23) 82-45 (21-6, 14-11, 17-13, 30-15)

Boys:

7. Delhi (S. Singha 16, V.K. Gupta 16) bt Andhra Pradesh (Neeraj Kumar B. 20, Salman S.M.A. 12) 88-50 (20-9, 17-20, 28-6, 23-15)
8. Haryana (Sonu Kumar 26) bt Maharashtra (Talha Mohd. 19) 92-74 (20-13, 17-7, 28-29, 27-25)
9. Chhattisgarh (Mithun 14) bt Odisha (Vishal B. 13) 63-41 (18-9, 13-12, 15-14, 17-6)
10. Bihar (Nitesh 19) bt Gujarat (Steve 15) 51-48 (10-9, 10-10, 14-15, 17-13)
11. Rajasthan (Abbas Ali 39) bt Karnataka (Guru Prasad 24) 87-67 (20-15, 9-26, 36-13, 23-13)

A complete list of results of the matches held after 5.30 p.m. on 9^th October 2014 is as follows:

Girls: 

1. Haryana (Surya 29) bt Madhya Pradesh (Sakshi 38) 72-66 (15-16, 10-8, 23-19, 24-23)
2. Andhra Pradesh (S. Biju 18) bt Jharkhand (Usma Singh 12) 42-30 (17-9, 18-6, 2-9, 5-6)
3. Rajasthan (Asha 16) bt Odisha (Jayshree Baskey 17) 42-40 (8-13, 5-8, 15-11, 14-8)

Boys:

1. Madhya Pradesh (Rishab Sharma 35) bt Karnataka (Guru Prasad 32) 84-77 (14-18, 16-19, 28-14, 26-16)
2. Chandigarh (Amit 16) bt Jammu and Kashmir (Abhisar 12) 58-35 (17-7, 18-11, 12-7, 14-10)
3. Himachal Pradesh (Ashish 15) bt West Bengal (Gopal 22) 51-42 (13-14, 18-7, 8-11, 12-10)
4. Odisha (Vishal Bagh 16) bt Puducherry (Ishaan 10) 67-27 (11-8, 28-10, 11-8, 17-1)
5. Mizoram (Eddie Z. 10) bt Assam (Sanju B. 13) 45-29 (17-8, 12-4, 8-8, 8-9)

The tentative schedule for the matches to be held on 11^th October 2014 is as follows:

FIXTURES

Date: 11-10-2014  (SATURDAY)

Court – 1

Court – 2

Court – 3

About the 31^st Youth National Basketball Championship

The Youth National Basketball Championship is an annual basketball tournament for the U-17 teams of boys and girls from various states of the country. This year’s tournament, being the 31^st version, is taking place in Chandigarh from the 7^th to the 14^th of October, 2014. The tournament is being held under the aegis of the Basketball Federation of India and IMG-Reliance and is being conducted by the Chandigarh Basketball Association. The venue for the tournament is the recently constructed multi-facility sports complex in Sector 42, Chandigarh along with two other basketball courts located in the Government College for Women, Sector 42, Chandigarh and the Gurunanak Dev Public School, Sector 36, Chandigarh. There are 25 boys teams and 24 girls teams taking part in this year’s championship, which will witness 130 matches in all. Last year’s tournament, in the boys category, was won by team Delhi, with Rajasthan finishing runners up. In the girls category, team Kerala were last year’s winners and Tamil Nadu finished in second place.