The Hindu : Sport / Basketball : Tamil Nadu puts out Punjab in a thriller

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 02, 2006

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Sport - Basketball

Tamil Nadu puts out Punjab in a thriller

Avinash Nair

PUNE: It was predicted to be a final before the actual final. The packed stadium witnessed a cracker of a contest as Tamil Nadu men beat Punjab 83-78 to top group B in the 56th edition of the Senior National Basketball championship at the Shri Shiv Chatrapathi Kreedapeet near here on Sunday

It may not exactly be the start that coach Sendhureswaran wanted to begin the year with. From a below par 13-18 first quarter scoreline, Tamil Nadu changed over at 31-33 thanks to the versatile Mihir Pandey.

Dream start

Punjab got off to a dream start with Talwinder Sahi mesmerising the Tamil Nadu defence with his speed and skill. Coach Dr. Subramaniam seemed to have had the better off in the first round. But all that was set to change thanks to some timely outside shooting from Shiv Shankar and a couple of offensive rebound conversions by Robinson and Mihir.

At 46-45, Tamil Nadu took the lead for the first time and then on it looked anybody's game. Tamil Nadu increased its lead to ten points, going into the decisive quarter.

A foul by Shiv Kumar on Talwinder which the later went on to convert, had the TN coach on his feet. Punjab did make valiant attempts through Snehpal and Jaswinder but TN players held its cool. Sugawaneswaran (18) and Shiv Shankar (18) played well with Mihir Pandey and Robinson providing good support. Tamil Nadu will now clash with the winner of Kerala-Delhi match.

In another gripping men's contest to decide the group `A' topper, Services downed Railways 64-56.

In the women's section, Maharashtra girls swamped Madhya Pradesh 80-32 to set up a quarterfinal clash with Delhi. Lincy Joseph and Rashmi C, along with Ambili, did the bulk of scoring for the host.

In the knockout stage beginning on Monday, Rajasthan takes on Madhya Pradesh while Kerala plays Delhi in the pre-quarterfinals. Railways will now play Karnataka while Services await the Rajasthan/MP winners

The results: Men: Group A: Services 64 (Jairam Jat 21, Arockiaraj Babu 15, Sambhaji Kadam 10) bt Railways 56 (Tridip Rai 18, Ranjeet 14). Uttranchal 101 (Muralikrishna 27, S. Sridhar 25,) bt AP 85 (P. Santosh 20, B. Shiva 17).

Group B: Karnataka 79 (R. Kaushal 16, Umashankar 16, Srinivas Gowda 11) bt Jharkhand 44 (Mohd Arif 16). TN 83 (S. Robinson 19, Sukawaneshwaran 18, Shiv Shankar 18) bt Punjab 78

(Talwinderjit 21, Yadvinder 13, Snehpal 10).

Lower division qualifying: Men: U.P. 87 (Vipin Kumar 17, Satish Kumar 12 Abhilekh 12) bt HP 65 (Dilip Kumar 21, Varinder 17). Orissa 81 (Ashok Kumar Naik 13, Ashish Ranjan 14) bt West Bengal 60 (Joseph Gomes 16, Subhash Bhattarcharjee 16, Amlendu Singh 12, Varun Pillay 11). Maharashtra 62 (Lakhwinder Singh 16, Sikanderjit Singh 11) bt Gujarat 47 (Harpal Singh 13, Baghiret Singh 11). Chandigarh 88 (Gopal Singh 22, Amrish Kumar 16, Sanjay 10, Mandeep 10) bt J&K 47 (Sumit Dogra 13, Kuldeep 11).

Women qualifying knockout: Maharashtra 80 (Lincy joseph 21, Rashmi C 11, Ambily P 10) bt MP 32 (Prerena Chopra 11).

Lower division qualifying: Karnataka 63 (Thirumala 15, Deepali 10) bt Gujarat 24). Rajasthan 67 (Kavita Saini 13) bt WB 46 (Paushali Dutta 29, Priyanka kumari 15). Assam 45 (S. Begum 11) bt Orissa 28 (Beronica 10). Haryana 36 ((Kulwinder 10, Neetu 9) bt Goa 2.

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