33rd Federation Cup National Basketball Tournament tips off in Greater Noida
If you wish to find the best basketball players in India this week, take the long route out to the Yamuna Expressway, in the barren lands of Greater Noida, far away from the crowds and infrastructure of urban Delhi, and you'll find a basketball court somewhere in this middle-of-nowhere, an oasis of hoops, a relief of slam dunks, slick passes, and big jump-shots.
This is where the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) in association with the Uttar Pradesh Basketball Association (UPBA) is hosting the 33rd Federation Cup Basketball Championship for Men and Women. The tournament tipped off on Wednesday, June 12 and is scheduled until June 16 at the Indoor Stadium of the Gautam Buddha University in Greater Noida's Gautam Budhh Nagar. 17 combined teams of the Men and Women's divisions are taking part in this year's event.
The Federation Cup fray consists of the top teams 8 from last year's Senior Nationals, plus the host state for this year's event. In the Men's division, the top ranking states send their best clubs/units. In the Women's divisions, the state teams themselves take part. Last year's Federation Cup was held in Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh) and won by IOB (Men) and Kerala (Women).
33rd Federation Cup Participating Teams
Men
- Pool A: Income Tax (Chennai), Punjab Police, ASC Centre (Bengaluru), BSF (Jodhpur), RDSO (Lucknow).
- Pool B: Indian Army, Central Railway, Shri Guru Gobind Singh College (Chandigarh), BEG (Roorkee)
Women
- Pool A: Eastern Railway, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi.
- Pool B: Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh.
Kerala's women began their title defense in style, blowing past hosts UP 62-43 in their opening game, led by their experienced leader Anjana PG (18). Eastern Railway defeated Delhi 97-62 behind big scoring outings by Poonam Chaturvedi (27) and Anjamma Daisy (18).
Indian Army defeated Central Railway 90-77 in one of the Men's games, led by Gopal Ram (23) and Suresh Kumar (19). Loveneet Singh had 21 for Central Railway in the loss. In a highly-anticipated contest, Punjab Police cruised past Income Tax 66-52. Returning Punjabi international Amritpal Singh led all scorers with 21 in the win. Gnanasekaran Sivabalan scored 20 for Income Tax.
The championship was officially inaugurated on Wednesday by Mahesh Sharma, current MLA from Noida.
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