Uttarakhand overcame a fighting Delhi unit to emerge a 76-65 winner in the 66th Senior National basketball championship, at the Chamundi Vihar Stadium here on Sunday.
Uttarakhand, the defending champion, slipped to 18-4 deficit early, with Delhi's speedy guards Sachin Sharma and Pravin Dovan running the show. The duo harried their bigger opponents by running into open spaces and taking uncontested shots.
It was up to India captain and Uttarakhand star player Vishesh Bhriguvanshi to keep his team alive. In the second-quarter, Bhriguvanshi began to drive to the basket aggressively, and was effective on the fast-break as well. Uttarakhand eventually took the lead — for the first time in the match — in the third-quarter. Sharpshooter Trideep Rai (17 pts) and Murali Krishna (12 pts) too started to find their range, taking Delhi out of the contest.
Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, banked primarily on its centres — Annadurai Aravind (24 pts) and Rikin Pethani (15 pts) — to ease past Services 83-59. The favourite has now won both its league fixtures.
In the women's section , Poonam Chaturvedi scored a remarkable 52 points to guide Chhattisgarh to 84-60 victory against Madhya Pradesh. The 6’9” Poonam ensured that the title holder made amends for a loss to Kerala on Saturday.
Host Karnataka succumbed to a second-straight defeat, going down 78-67 to Delhi. The sister act of Pratima Singh and Prashanti Singh recorded 55 points between them, helping Delhi turn it around after being 32-38 down at half-time.
Results:
Men: Karnataka 92 (Arvind Arumugam 33, Anil Kumar 23, Sanil Sashi 13, Sashi Kumar 13) bt Haryana 73 (Deepak 29, Vijendra 18), Kerala 81 (R. Manoj 19, Philip Basil 12, Pereira Eduric 12, Wilson Monish 11) bt Telangana 58 (Boom David 13, Yadav Nihal 10); TN 83 (Annadurai Aravind 24, Rikin Pethani 15, Pratham Singh 11, Prasanna Venkatesh 11) bt Services 59 (Narendar 16, S.M. Setu 14, Ashutosh Rai 10); Uttarakhand 76 (Vishesh Bhriguvanshi 18, Trideep Rai 17, Murali Krishna 12) bt Delhi 65 (Sachin Sharma 19); Maharashtra 88 (Edwin Irvin 18, Loveneet Ajwal 16, Pradeep Chavan 16) bt UP 80 (Ankur Anand 27, Ashutosh Singh 15, Bobby Singh 14); Puducherry 71 (Vinod 32, Harikrishna 11) bt Goa 64 (Shawn Soares 19); Chhattisgarh 73 (Kiran 23, Dinesh 12) bt Odisha 48 (Sahid Khan 10).
Women: Indian Railways 72 (Raja Priya 15, Sitamani 13) bt Punjab 26; Chhattisgarh 84 (Poonam Chaturvedi 52) bt MP 60 (Sakshi Pandey 18, Ringhen 15, Nimdo Bhutia 10); AP 32 (Nikita 10) bt Tripura 12; Bihar 47 (Shravanthi 32) bt Puducherry 29; WB 64 (Anjana 16, Salma Devi 15) bt Gujarat 12; Delhi 78 (Pratima Singh 30, Prashanti Singh 25, Raspreet Sidhu 16) bt Karnataka 67 (L. Kruthika 27, H.M. Bhandavya 16).
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