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After a whirlwind semi-final schedule concluded, the finalists at the 32nd Youth National Basketball Championship were set to clash yesterday evening in Bhavnagar, Gujarat. The girls’ final was between defending champs Tamil Nadu and the undefeated Chhattisgarh team, while defending champs Tamil Nadu and the upstart Delhi boys team were set to face each other in the boys’ final.
However, much to everyone’s disappointment, the bad weather continued in Bhavnagar and the incessant rain made it impossible for the organisers to conduct the finals at the venue in M.K. Bhavnagar University. The BFI technical commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. Norman Isaac, held a meeting along with the team managers of the finalists, wherein it was unanimously decided to declare the finalists as joint winners of the tournament. Tamil Nadu and Delhi were declared joint winners in the boys’ category, while Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh were declared joint winners in the girls’ category.
The boys’ third place match also could not be conducted. Therefore, in the aforementioned meeting, it was also decided that the Haryana and Punjab boys would share joint third place. It was also decided to give gold medals to each player from the teams in the finals in both the boys’ and girls’ categories along with an individual winner’s trophy to each team. Further, each of the Haryana and Punjab boys’ players received a bronze medal and each team received a third place trophy. The Maharashtra girls won third place in the girls’ category as decided earlier in the day with their victory against Punjab.
P. Baladhaneshwar from Tamil Nadu was named as the boys’ MVP for the tournament. This is his second MVP trophy in two years at the Youth National Basketball Championship. From the girls, Chhattisgarh’s Gulabsha Ali was named MVP.
The final rankings of the Level 1 teams after the tournament are as follows:
Girls:
Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh – Joint 1st
Maharashtra – 3rd
Punjab – 4th
MP – 5th
Kerala – 6th
Haryana – 7th
Karnataka – 8th
West Bengal – 9th
Uttar Pradesh – 10th
Boys:
Tamil Nadu and Delhi – Joint 1st
Haryana, Punjab – Joint 3rd
Kerala – 5th
Maharashtra – 6th
Uttar Pradesh – 7th
Chhattisgarh – 8th
Gujarat – 9th
Chandigarh – 10th
The teams that have been relegated from Level 1 to Level 2 from the boys’ category are Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, while Delhi and Andhra Pradesh from the girls’ category dropped to Level 2 for next year’s tournament.
Himachal Pradesh won the loser’s knockout final in the girls’ category with a win against Gujarat, while West Bengal won the boys’ losers knockout final defeating Goa.
