The Hindu : TN has it easy over Uttaranchal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003

Sport

Sport - Basketball

TN has it easy over Uttaranchal

By M.C. Raman

Cuttack Dec. 30. Uttaranchal and Karnataka played an inspiring game though there was too much at stake in the 54th National senior basketball championship at the Nehru Stadium here on Tuesday. Uttaranchal, making its own calculations to meet an `easy' team, possibly Karnataka, in the quarterfinals, threw away its match against Tamil Nadu, which, however, went on to do its demolition job perfectly.

It also helped the Tamil Nadu coach to field his bench players, after taking a lead of over 30 points at one stage. Tamil Nadu raced to its third victory in four matches.

Kerala scored a comfortable 75-54 victory over Jharkhand, which played its second match today, and topped Group A. Though Kerala tied with Tamil Nadu, recording three wins and one loss, it beat Tamil Nadu in the opening match. So Kerala earned the honour of finishing on top. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal, Railways and Jharkhand finished in that order. Jharkhand was relegated. Similarly, in men's Group B, Services, Karnataka, Punjab, Andhra and UP finished in that order. UP was relegated.

It was clear that Uttaranchal was in no mood to fight. The team hardly did anything to challenge Tamil Nadu. Robinson was brilliant in shooting and rebounding. Sukhavaneshwaran was barging in for close shots. Sridhar and substitute Moses Jeevanand kept up the pressure with steady shooting. By the end of first quarter Tamil Nadu led 33-16 and at half time it led 65-35. Tami Nadu did not give any chance for the rival to score.

However, in the third quarter when Tamil Nadu substituted its bench players came, Uttaranchal's shooting picked up as Mohit Bhandari, Suresh Kumar, who converted more three pointers, and Desh Raj, who hardly impressed in the first half, found their touch to cut down the lead. But it could not bridge the big gap.

By beating Andhra comfortably at 74-47, Punjab secured third place in Group B with two wins and two losses. It was a start to finish domination by Punjab.

Last on Tuesday night Services defeated Punjab 85-60. As expected the Army team dominated in this group to win all its four matches to top the pool.

The women's quarterfinal lineup: Delhi v Maharashtra; MP v Kerala; Chhattisgarh v AP and Railways v Tamil Nadu. In the men's quarter-finals, Kerala meets the winner of Andhra v Rajasthan, Uttaranchal meets Karnataka, Tamil Nadu takes on Punjab and Services faces the winner of Railways v Haryana.

The results:

Men: Gr. A: Tamil Nadu 112 (Sukhavaneshwaran 22, Robinson 1, Sridhar 12) bt Uttaranchal 83 (Suresh Kumar 28, Mohit Bhandari 21, Desh Raj 16); Railways 105 (Mihir Pandey 24, Riazuddin 3) bt Jharkhand 93 (Bindo Choudhary 26, Shiv Kumar 20); Kerala 75 (Subash Shenoy 22, Shabu Kumar 10, Vivek 20) bt Jharkhand 54 (Shivkumar 20); Gr. B: Services 83 (Phool Singh 13, Peter John 15); Karnataka 70 (Basavaraj 16, Murali Mohan 15, Srinivas Gowda 14, Gautham 14); Punjab 74 (Amit Prashar 18, Damandeep Singh 17) bt Andhra 47 (Nikhil Yadav 11, K. Amrit Raj 10); Services 85 (Joseph 22, G.R.L. Prasad 14) bt Punjab 60 (Snehpal Singh 13,

Preetinder Singh 11).

MP 59 (Asadullah Khan 17) bt J & K 30 (Harpreet 12); Bengal 69 (A. Singh 34) bt Delhi 55 (Bijender Singh 14).

Women: Pre-quarterfinals: Punjab 66 (Kamaljit Kaur 21) bt Bengal 56 (Vinitha 23).

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