National basketball championship: Preeti sends her team UP

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Uttar Pradesh girls proved height is not the only barometer for excellence in basketball when they toppled taller Punjab girls to storm into the quarterfinals of the 62nd senior national basketball championship here at the Nehru Indoot Stadium on Wednesday.

Preeti Kumari’s nimble feet made up for her short frame — measuring only five feet — as the school girl scored 37 points in Uttar Pradesh’s 79-52 win. Not just Preeti, almost all the players in Uttar Pradesh roster are of same height.

The little girl Preeti, who drew cheer from spectators whenever she gained possession, sunk in as many as six three-pointers. She didn’t hesitate to pierce through the defence for lay-ups, leaving tall defenders in her wake. Preeti was ably supported by her teammates, particularly Ranjana Singh who chipped in with 20. UP girls will meet Delhi in the last eight on Thursday afternoon.

Earlier, Uttarakhand men halted Karnataka’s dream march in the pre-quarterfinals. Scoring a tournament high of 44 points, Trideep Rai powered Uttarakhand to an emphatic 107-86 win over Karnataka, who had made it to the elimination round from lower level.

For emerging on top of Level II, Karnataka were gifted with the opportunity of choosing their pre-quarterfinal opponents and they picked Uttarakhand instead of minnows Andhra Pradesh to avoid being in the same half as powerful Punjab. But their gamble didn’t pay off.

Barring the initial minutes, Karnataka showed little spark in the contest against the 2004 champions Uttarakhand. Former India skipper Trideep was unstoppable. Karnataka defenders had no answers to his powerful drive-ins.

He moved around his opponents’ territory with consummate ease and used the board to pocket eye-catching lay-ups. In a bid to keep him at bay, Karnataka players deployed double defence on Trideep, but ended up only making a slew of fouls.

The ONGC officer made full use of them – converting all the 14 free-throws. Trideep also came up with two shots from outside the D. Towering Murali Krishna played a perfect second-fiddle, pulling down rebounds and feeding the ball to his on-song teammate.

For Karnataka, A. Aravind netted 21 points, while Jijin Joseph scored 19 including four long-rangers. Uttarakhand will now take on hosts Tamil Nadu on Thursday evening for a place in the semifinals.
In another pre-quarterfinals, Haryana prevailed over Andhra Pradesh 93-87 in a thriller to set up a clash with favourites Punjab.

Results

PQF: Men: Uttarakhand 107 (Trideep Rai 44, Murali Krishna 17) bt Karnataka 86 (A. Aravind 21, Jijin K. Joseph 19, Srinivas Naik 18). Haryana 93 (Deepak Rathee 32, Sukhbir Khals 23, Hemant Sheron 18) bt AP 87 (Naveen Kumar 23, Vinay Kumar Yadav 20, Satish Kumar 19, Ramesh Kumar 12)

Women: Karnataka 85 (Navaneetha 30, Sushmitha 26) bt Andhra Pradesh 67 (Manda 22, Anusha 18). Uttar Pradesh 79 (Preeti Kumari 37, Ranjana Singh 20) bt Punjab 52 (Kiranjit Kaur 18, Nagma Mirza 10).
QF line-up: Men: Punjab vs Haryana (8.30pm); Kerala vs Services (11.30am); Delhi vs Indian Railways (3.30pm); Tamil Nadu vs Uttarakhand (6.30pm).

Women: Indian Railways vs Karnataka (7am). Kerala vs Chhattisgarh (10am); Delhi vs Uttar Pradesh (2pm); Tamil Nadu vs Maharashtra (5pm).