National basketball championships: Tamil Nadu men begin title defence in style

Tamil Nadu men kick-started their rubric defence run connected a beardown note, breezing past Rajasthan 101-68 connected the opening time of the 75th Senior National hoops championships astatine the Nehru Indoor Stadium present connected Sunday.

The location squad bolted retired of the gross aboriginal successful the archetypal quarter, with Baladhaneshwar Poiyamozhi opening the relationship with 2 escaped throws followed by a jump-shot three-pointer. Pranav Prince past consolidated the aboriginal pb with a dunk and a three-pointer arsenic the big closed retired the archetypal 4th 27-7.

In the opening signifier of the game, the TN defenders were connected the wealth with rebounds portion Rajasthan’s shooting was disconnected target. From there, it was astir conscionable protecting the pb arsenic TN kept the gait and was 51-26 up astatine half-time.

In the 3rd quarter, TN kept the ft connected the pedal and raced to a 66-36 pb with Muin Bek Hafeez drilling successful back-to-back three-pointers successful the abstraction of a minute. For the winner, Aravind Kumar was the top-scorer with 16 points, followed by R. Hariram with 13.

Important results: Women: Group A: Indian Railways 101 (Pushpa Senthil Kumar 19, Manmeet Kaur 18, Sathya 17, Dharshini 14, Harshita 10) bt Delhi 51 (D. Kritika 11, Garima Gosain 11).

Karnataka 91 (Sruti Aravind 24, Mahek Sharma 21, S. Sobana 16, M. Bhandhavya 14) bt Maharashtra 71 (Siya Deodhar 21).

Group B: Kerala 91 (V.J. Jayalakshmi 15, Susan Florentina 14, Akshya Philip14) bt Gujarat 22.

Tamil Nadu 72 (R. Sruthy 21, Asmitha 14, Antheya Daisy 11, Kogilavani 11) bt Madhya Pradesh 65 (Khushi Pal Singh 23, Manvi Srivasthava 12, Gunvi Agarwal 11, Priya Goswami 11).

Men: Group A: Karnataka 104 (B.K. Anil Kumar 22, Aravind Arumugham 15, Aaron Montero 14, Abhishek Gowda 11, Pratyanshu Tomar 10) bt Gujarat 69 (Mirant Italia 17, Jigrajsinh Gohil 17, Vinay Kaushil 13, Sahaj Kumar Kaushik 10).

Tamil Nadu 101 (Aravind Kumar 16, R. Hariram 13, P. Jeevanatham 12, Pranav Prince 10) bt Rajasthan 68 (Mohammed Idwan 18, Lokendra Singh 15, Akshit Hooda 15, Piyush Meena 13).

Group B: Uttar Pradesh 112 (Harsh Dagar 38, Kushal Singh Digvijay Singh 18, Satayjeet Chaprana 17) bt Punjab 100 (Tejinderbir Singh 23, Gurwinder Singh 20, Shabibjit Singh 20, Swapnil Singh 10).