Tamil Nadu keep winning

Basketball Senior Nationals

Tamil Nadu men kept up their winning streak by outclassing Indian Railways 83-62 in the last Group A league match as the 64th National Basketball Championship reached the knockout phase at the Thyagaraj Stadium on Sunday.   

Tamil Nadu grabbed the lead at the outset and sat comfortably with 18-point lead at half time.  Railways played aggressively in the third quarter to score some quick points but Tamil Nadu never eased their grip on the match till the last. Pratham Singh scored 23 points, Prasanna Venkatesh 23 and Rikin Pethani for Tamil Nadu. They marched into the quarterfinals as leaders of Group A and were followed into the knockout phase by Uttarakhand and Indian Railways.

In the quarterfinals, which begin on Monday, Tamil Nadu will play the winner of the pre-quarterfinal match between Karnataka and Rajasthan. Karnataka, who started the championships in the lower Group D, defeated Haryana 76-69 to set up a clash with Rajasthan, the team which finished fourth in the Group B.

Defending champions Uttarakhand rounded off their league matches with a 79-67 victory over Chhattisgarh. Their only loss came in four matches came at the hands of Tamil Nadu.

Punjab headed Group B after they beat Services 79-72.  Services finished second and were followed into the quarterfinals by Kerala. In a quality fare, Services began with purpose to shoot to a 10-5 lead in the first five minutes before Punjab took over.
In the quarterfinals, Punjab will play the winner of the pre-quarterfinal clash between Haryana and Chattisgarh.

In the women’s event, defending champions Indian Railways, who were pushed to the wall by Kerala on Saturday, stormed back with a 91-39 decimation of Karnataka to top the Group A.

Karnataka, who finished fourth in the group now play Andhra Pradesh in the pre-quarterfinals. 

Kerala girls put up yet another spirited show against lacklustre Delhi to win 79-54 and finish second in Group A. Delhi finished third.

In Group B, Maharashtra marched into last eight, followed by Punjab and Chhattisgarh.

Results:

Men: Group A: Uttarakhand: 79 (Amritpal Singh 28, Yadwinder Singh 20, Paramjit Singh 15) bt Chhattisgarh: 67 (Karanpal Singh 30, Ajay Pratap Singh 15, Sameer Rai 9) Tamil Nadu: 83 (Pratham Singh 23, Prasanna Venkatesh 23, Rikin Pethani 16) bt Indian Railways:62 (N Singh 13, P Mishra 13, Ankur Anand 12).

Group B: Kerala: 89 (Abhilash T 23, Basil Philip 21, Albin Baby 13, Ajeeth Sugunan 12, Monish Wilson 11) bt Rajasthan: 68 (Vinod Kumar 20, Kamran Khan 17).

Punjab: 79 (Ranbir Singh 30, Palpreet Singh 29, Amrit Singh 10) bt Services: 72 (Narender Grewal 14, Joginder Singh 12, Manu Thomas 11, Gopal Ram 11).

Women: Group A: Indian Railways: 91 (R Priyadarshni 20, M Pushpa 16, Anju Lakra 13) bt Karnataka: 39 (Kruthika L 11, Savitha L S 7, Navaneetha P U 6),  Kerala: 79 (Neenumol P S 21, Lijimol P 20, Stephy Nixon 17, Jeena PS 16) bt Delhi: 54 (Raspreet Sidhu 24, Prashanti Singh 15).

Group B: Tamil Nadu: 84 (Soniya Joy 12, V Srividya 12, R Ramya 12, R Algu Tamil Mozi 11) bt Madhya Pradesh: 34 (Jhilik Roy 11, Sakshi Pandey 11), Punjab: 64 (Kiranjit Kaur 23, Kirandeep Kaur 19) bt Chhattisgarh: 52 (Sangeeta Kaur 13, Deepa L 10, Anjana Daisy Ekka 10).

Qualifying group: Men: Karnataka: 76 (Arvind 27, Srinivas Naik 22, Dheeraj Shetty 14) bt Haryana: 69 (Deepak R 24, Hemant S 21).

Women: Andhra Pradesh (M Gayatri 13, Jenney Joseph 10, Jilna Jose 10) bt Uttar Pradesh: 15 (Niharika 8).

Fixtures:

Men: Pre-quarterfinals: Rajasthan vs Karnataka, Haryana vs Chhattisgarh.
Quarterfinals: Tamil Nadu vs winner of (Rajasthan vs Karnataka), Indian Railways vs Services, Uttarakhand vs Kerala, Punjab vs winner of (Haryana vs Chhattisgarh).
Women: Pre-quarterfinals: Tamil Nadu vs Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh vs Karnataka.

Quarterfinals: Indian Railways vs winner of (Tamil Nadu vs Uttar Pradesh), Delhi vs Punjab, Kerala vs Chhattisgarh, Winner of Andhra Pradesh vs Karnataka) vs Maharashtra.