The Hindu : Sport / Basketball : Karnataka men and women post wins

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Friday, Dec 30, 2005

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Sport - Basketball

Karnataka men and women post wins

Avinash Nair

PUNE: Karnataka overcame Madhya Pradesh 97-81 in a men's Group B encounter on the second day of the 56th senior National basketball championship for men and women at the Sree Shiv Chhathrapati Kreedapeet near here this afternoon.

Murli Mohan was in fine nick with his outside shooting and the tall Srinivasa Gowda, who has been aggressive and sharp this season, proved a pillar of strength under the boards, besides chipping in with 19 points.

Karnataka's first quarter 34-21 leeway stood it in good stead till the end, as MP strove to make a match of it in the final quarter.

Karnataka women too had it relatively easy, routing a lowly Orissa 63-19 in a Group C encounter.

Tamil Nadu men had another stroll in the park, this time against Jharkhand, winning handsomely at 112-42. Sukawaneswaran and Ravikumar combined well to rip through the rival defence at will and coach Sendhureswaran could well afford to rest his key player S. Robinson for a considerable perod of time.

"We let the trophy slip out of our hands last year, losing to Punjab. And we are here to claim it back," said coach Sendhureswaran. And going by the team's performance here, Tamil Nadu and Punjab look to be the frontrunners.

Scuffle

A midcourt scuffle broke out during the Chandigarh-Pondicherry men's Group F clash which resulted in the entire bench of both teams being disqualified on `fighting foul' rule. The 7-minute stoppage, however, proved just a deterrent as the teams renewed its contest in earnest and Chandigarh went on to score a thumping win. But the match did leave a black mark, on an otherwise smooth day on the court.

Indian Railways men overcame a first half complacency to put it across Kerala at 88-71 in a men's Group A fixture. The Railwaymen seemed to be taking it easy after their fluent win over Uttaranchal on the opening day. The fleet footed Kerala boys took advantage of the situation, but could not sustain it beyond the first two quarters. Kerala's second reversal has put it under a lot of pressure.

The results:

Men Group A: Services 88 (A. Faizal 18, S.M. Settu 17, Phool Singh 12, Jairam Jai 11) bt AP 55 (Siva Reddy 17, K. Amruth Raj 11); Railways 88 (Trideep Rai 36, Ranjeet Singh 23, Kamal Singh 13) bt Kerala 71 (Subash Shenoy 23, Sunny Thomas 19).

Group B: TN 112 (Sukawaneswaran 22, Ravikumar 13, Javed Khan 10) bt Jharkhand 42; Karnataka 97 (Murli Mohan 24, Srinivas Gowda 19, Umashankar 17) bt MP 81 (Kuldeep 24, Rajeev 19, Prakash 14).

Group D: Haryana 95 (Mukesh 19, Vinay 16, Deepak 14) bt J & K 32 (Vikas Mahajan 12); West Bengal 61 (Prosonjit Das 18, Mitav Mukherjee 11) bt Goa 41 (Spencer Vegas 26).

Group E: Delhi 98 (Shiv Kumar 30, Dilip Kumar 24, Shiv Kumar 14) bt Chhattisgarh 74 (M. Chambaldo 23, Prakash Rao 21, Srinivasan 13); UP 96 (Abhilekh Paul 33, Amitesh Singh 25, Sateesh Kumar 14) bt Maharashtra 80 (Biju Mathew 18, Amit Ambedkar 15, Amit Wadkar 11).

Group F: Assam 105 (Birendra 23, R. Yadav 21) bt Orissa 54 (A.K. Nayar 13, V. Mohanty 10); Chandigarh 90 (Amrit Pal Singh 22, Amrish Kumar 13, Gurpal Singh 12) bt Pondicherry 47 (S. Senthilvel 13, T. Bhaskaran 10).

Women: Group A: Railways 63 (G. Jose 13, Shanti Saldanha 13) bt Punjab 36 (Kamaljeet Kaur 11, Asshna 10).

Group B: Kerala 97 (Lajita 27, Beena 21, Anjana 15) bt Chhattisgarh 81 (Navneet Kaur 19, M. Pushpa 12); Delhi 99 (Divya Singh 32, Sheeba Maggon 20) bt AP 38.

Group C: Karnataka 53 (Sunitha 12, Deepa 11) bt Orissa 19 (PR Das 12).

Group E: UP 56 (K.K. Shaila 18, Ciny T. Anthony 17) bt Assam 29.

Group F: Chandigarh 42 (Gurjeet 11, Shweta 10) bt West Bengal 33 (Paushali Dutta 15); Goa 26 bt Uttaranchal 16.

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