Dates and venues announced for senior and sub-junior national basketball championships

The events will take place in Mysore and Puducherry

The Basketball Federation of India (BFI) has officially announced the dates and venues of the 66thSenior National Basketball Championship for Men and Women, and of the 42nd Sub-Junior National Basketball Championship for Boys & Girls.

The 66th Senior National Basketball Championship will be organized by BFI in association with Karnataka Basketball Association in Mysore from 9th to 16th January, 2016. The venue will be the Chamundi Vihar Indoor Stadium, Mysore.

The 42nd Sub-Junior National Basketball Championship will be organized by BFI in association with Pondicherry Basketball Association in Puducherry from 2nd to 8th February, 2016. The venue for the matches will be the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Puducherry. Only players born on or after 01.01.2002 are eligible to participate.

For more information, please keep visiting www.basketballfederationindia.org, where fixtures, groupings and rosters will be made public closer to the actual Championship dates.

National Basketball Championships- General Structure & Format

The National Basketball Championship for Men and Women, across various age groups, is a massive two-week long all-India inter-state championship organized annually. The Championship features almost all 29 Indian States and Union territories which compete for the unbeatable honour of being crowned national champions.

The National Championship also serves as an important platform to selectors to identify the most talented individual players and coaches and enable them to attend national team training camps for participation in international events.

The 25+ teams in each of the men’s and women’s section are grouped into two levels: Upper Level 1 and lower Level 2. Level 1 generally features the top 10 teams from the previous championship divided into two groups of five teams each. Level 2 features the remaining teams.

The Championship is played on a league cum knockout basis, with as many as 120 matches played from early morning till late night. Generally the matches are played simultaneously on three courts.

In the league stages, all teams from each group play each other once.The top three Level 1 teams from each of the two groups directly qualify to the quarterfinals stage, while the bottom (i.e. 5th) placed Level 1 teams are relegated to the lower Level 2 for next year. The two fourth placed teams from both the Level 1 groups play pre-quarterfinal games against the top teams from level 2.

Level 2 features four Groups (C, D, E and F) usually of 4-5 teams each. After the league stages, the top four teams (one from each Group) play qualifying matches in order to attempt to move to the upper level.

The two winning teams after these qualifying matches between the top 4 Level 2 teams immediately qualify to the upper Level in the next edition, replacing the two bottom (i.e. 5th placed) teams from the upper Level 1 Groups.

These two “Level 2 to Level 1” qualifying teams also play another match which allows the winning team to pick their pre-quarterfinal opponent (basically choosing between either the 4th placed team in Level 1 Group A or the 4th placed team in Level 1)

For all the remaining Level 2 teams which didn’t qualify to the knockout stages of the main competition, a separate ‘Loser’s Knockout’ Tournament is held between them in order to give these teams much needed match practice, and a chance for them to test their bench strength.

After the league stages, the knockout rounds begin from the quarterfinals onwards. The teams which get eliminated in the quarterfinals & semifinals also play placement matches for positions 5 to 8 (in case of quarterfinal losers) and positions 3-4 (in case of semifinal losers).