The Hindu : Anna and Kannur have it easy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 27, 2003

Sport

Sport - Basketball

Anna and Kannur have it easy

Chennai Nov. 26. Anna University of Chennai and Kannur from Kerala scored comfortable victories over Gandhigram Rural and JNTU, Hyderabad, respectively and moved into the pre-quarter-finals of the South Zone inter-University men's basketball championship at the Loyola College campus here on Wednesday.

While Anna thrashed Gandhigram Rural 89-46, Kannur defeated JNTU 56-41.

The winners, barring perhaps the Madurai-Kamaraj-Kuvembu encounter, had it easy today as their rivals did not have the defence to put them on the mat. Madurai-Kamaraj faced some anxious moments in its second round encounter against Kuvembu, which rallied in the final stages. But the Madurai team managed to edge out the rival by five points (61-56). It was Shanth Kumar who helped Kuvembur to put up a good show with his steady shooting (32 points).

Kannur took a slender 28-26 in the first half against JNTU. However, the Kerala side improved its man to man defence in the second half and surged to a 43-31 lead against JNTU. Hari and Nicholas did well in driving in for shots and rebounds. For the Andhra team Sivaram Choudhry fought a lone battle.

Anna had height advantage and its 2-3 zone defence was too strong for the rival. Gandhigram's shooting was also rather poor as it collected only 16 points in the first two quarters. But Anna went on a scoring spree, outplaying the opponent.

The results: Third round: Mysore 64 (H.M. Ramesh 21, Mir Imran 12, M. Mahesh 10) beat Gulbarga 51 (Sadashiva Kotya 21, Chandrasekar 18). Kannur 56 (M. Hari 20, M.A. Nicholas 11) beat JNTU 41 (Shivaram Choudhry 11). Bharathidasan, Tiruchi, 77 (R. Karthik 17, S. Basil 19, D. Leo Antonyraj 15, A.N. Kamarasan 12). beat Osmania 55 (Vijender 14, Sandeep 10, Niyakar 10). Anna 89 (V. Sirvas 26, Sriprakash 11, R. Ramkumar 10) beat Gandhigram Rural 46 (Ganesan 15).

Second round: Osmania, Hyderabad, 74 (Sandeep 19, Nijakar 16) beat Sri Venkateswara, Tirupathi, 51 (J.C. Kirankumar 19, Srinivasulu 11).

Anna, Chennai, 69 (Ramkumar 20, M. Rajendran 15) beat RG University of HS, Karnataka, 41 (N. Srinath 10, Prem Varghese 12). Madurai-Kamaraj 61 (R. Ganesh Prabhu 20, B. Mohan Babu 10) beat Kuvembu, Shimoga, 56 (Shanth Kumar 32). Bharathiyar, Coimbatore, 75 (S. Jeeva 12, C.R. Viswanathan 13) beat Thiruvallur, Vellore, 30 (P. Sathiyanathan 10).

VTU, Belgaum, 83 (Jonathan 38, Priyaram 14) beat SK University, Anantapur, 57 (Madan Mohan Reddy 23, Ismail 17).

Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, 71 (Sonx Mathew 20, Lijo Joseph 11, Vinith Ravi Mathew 11) beat Andhra, Visakhapatnam, 32.

JNTU, Hyderabad, w/o. Mangalore.

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