6th UPL All India Savio Cup to tip off in Mumbai

Mumbai’s basketball lovers are in for a feast of high quality basketball, as India's leading male and female hoopsters - along with a team from the United States of America 'Shooting for Success' - will be vying for top honours in the 6th Edition of the UPL All India Savio Cup-Don Bosco Basketball Tournament, held from 23rd January 2011 to 30th January 2011. The tournament will be held at Don Bosco High School (Matunga) and will be sponsored by United Phosphorous Ltd and Co-sponsored by Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.

The tournament, which has become one of the leading basketball competitions in the country, will feature six teams in the Men’s and four teams in the Women’s divisions.

Father Bosco D’Mello, Organizing Secretary of the tournament said, “The Savio Cup is a brilliant effort of teamwork. Diehard fans of the sport of basketball (both young and not so young) coming together to give a boost to the game of basketball, both to popularize it and take it to great heights by bringing together the best players both of Indian origin and overseas. You have got to be there to live the experience."

Participating Teams

Men: Services, IOB Chennai, Indian Railways, Punjab, Maharashtra, Shooting for Success (San Antonio, Texas, USA).

Women: Southern Railway, South East Central Railway, Karnataka, Maharashtra.

Some of the star players featuring in the tournament will include Shambaji Kadam, Dilip Kumar, Vishesh Bruguvanshi, Talwinder Singh, Mihir Pandey, Jagdeep, Yadwinder Singh, Harish, Geetu Anna Jose, Anita Pauldurai, Bharati Netam, Anju Lakra, Shirin Limaye, Sneha Rajguru, Amrita Baskute, Seema Singh, and others.

A highlight of this year’s tournament is the special felicitation function planned for the Administrators, Referees, Players and Journalists of yesteryear who had made significant contributions to the game of Basketball.

The tournament's organisers are doing a vigorous job in promoting the event. Savio Cup updates can be found on its Facebook page, on Twitter, and the organisers will also be sending SMS updates to fans who wish to submit their number for information.

The men and women will play a round robin league, with the top two teams going on to play the final. The men’s winners stand to gain Rs. 1 lakh, while the runners-up teams will take home Rs. 50,000. The women’s winners will take home Rs. 50,000 with the runner-up teams standing to gain Rs. 25,000. There will be prizes for every match as well as for individual brilliance.

Also planned are a ‘dunking competition’ and a ‘three-point shooting competition’.

The matches will be played on the Terra Flex surface with the use of Electronic Scoreboards and 24-second devices, in specially erected stadium to seat approx. 2000 spectators.

Three matches are expected to be played every day and they will be officiated by International referees, from different states, including three from Maharashtra.

IOB and SEC Railway lift Ramu Memorial trophies

Another edition of the Ramu Memorial Basketball Tournament (RMBT) concluded on Sunday night, with Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and South East Central (SEC) Railway lifting the Men's and Women's trophies respectively.


Held at the Indian Gymkhana in Mumbai, the RMBT is an annual, prestigious All-India basketball tournament, now in it's 26th edition. The tournament has historically featured the best team's in India competing for the coveted trophy.

From the tournament's press release:

Indian Overseas Bank, improving in every match since their first league match loss to Indian Army, gained sweet revenge right at the end, when they outplayed the Indian Army team 71-54 in the men’s final to lift the glittering 26th UPL Ramu Memorial Trophy, sponsored by United Phorphorous Ltd. and earn a purse of Rs 1 lakh at the Indian Gymkhana, here, on Sunday.
Earlier, in the women’s final, South East Central Railway ended the four-year domination of Southern Railway, handing them a 67-57 defeat to lay their hands on the Kapila Khandvala Shield, along with a purse of Rs 50,000.

Indian Army were done in by the ‘Triple Towers’ of Indian Army, S Robinson, Vineeth Mathew and Mihir Pander... Robinson was easily the standout among both teams... He ended up with the day’s high of 24 points, while Mathew got 18 and Pandey 13. In fact, such was the dominance of IOB that they had scored 12 points before Army opened their account. With Sambhaji Kadam a pale shadow of himself and Nixon failing to find his scoring touch, Army were always playing catch up.
The women’s final saw SECR score over Southern thanks to their entire team pulling their weight. On the other hand, Southern’s reliance on Geethu Anna Jose to deliver the goods proved their undoing with the other players failing to rise to the occasion.

S. Robinson was named player of the tournament. By the way, the 'S' stands for 'Sozhasingarayer' - no wonder the media chooses to stick to the initial! This has been sweet redemption for the basketball sensation, who spent three years in basketball exile after being banned from representing his state Tamil Nadu and the national team.

Pushpa of SEC-Railway, for her consistent play throughout the competition, won the Women's player of the tournament.


Earlier, the Men's semi-finals as well as the slam dunk and three point competitions took place on Saturday evening at the Gymkhana. In the semis, IOB, led by Robinson's 29 points, defeated the rather lukewarm challenge of ONGC 74-57. Indian Army defeated last year's winners Western Railway 71-57.

Nixon from the Indian Army won the 12-man field of the three point shootout. TJ Sahi of Punjab faced a tough competition from last year's finalist Vishesh Bhriguvanshi in the slam dunk competition - TJ eventually won, dunking over two motor bikes and a carrom board in the final round (!), after which he did his signature reverse slam.

A carrom board... ha!

Anyways, this was all in all an exciting tournament, garnering a lot of attention for Indian basketball teams and stars. Granted, for the sport to really capture the imaginations of the audiences, we need to have a consistent league system instead of irregular prized/sponsored competitions. The signs are good though - with the NBA's involvement with BFI as well as their interest in the promoting the game to an Indian audience, I have no doubt that basketball, the country's second fastest growing sport, has nowhere to go but up...

Happy Holi, everybody.

Defending champs dominate Ramu Memorial group stage

The group stages of this year's Ramu Memorial Basketball Tournament (RMBT) concluded last night, with defending champs Western Railways dominating the Men's competition. SEC-Railway go into the final undefeated in the Women's field.

Held at the Indian Gymkhana in Mumbai, the RMBT is an annual, prestigious All-India basketball tournament, now in it's 26th edition. The tournament has historically featured the best team's in India competing for the coveted trophy.

In the men's competition, the teams were divided into two groups:

Group A: Western Railway, ONGC, Chennai Customs, Vijaya Bank
Group B: Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Army, Punjab, RCF-Kapurtala

Western Railway, led by V-Town prodigy and captain of the Young Cagers Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, have been on fire so far, winning all three of their group games. Vishesh has been the main perpetrator, highlighted by his 42 point scoring outburst in the close 85-80 victory over Vijaya Bank in their second game. They also beat Chennai Customs and ONGC to finish as group leaders.


ONGC also qualified from Group A, beating Vijaya Bank and Chennai Customs in their two blowout victories. Mohit Bhandari and Trideep Rai have been consistent performers in their matches.

Indian Army and the giant-killers Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) qualified from Group B for the semi-finals. Three teams in the group - IOB, Indian Army, and Punjab - finished with two victories each, leaving the qualifiers to be decided by point difference.

The big surprise were IOB, led by the recent resurgence of veteran player S. Robinson. After going 1-1 in their first two games, IOB needed a big win against a favoured Punjab side to qualify. Punjab have their own big time performers in Jagdeep Singh and TJ Sahi, but IOB rallied to win their game Thursday night 95-64, led by Robinson's 31. They finished top of the group.

Indian Army lost their first game to Punjab, but recovered well with balanced teamplay and won their next two games against IOB and RCF-Kapurtala, finishing second place in the group.

The Semi-Finals for men will both take place on Saturday the 27th.
5:00 PM: Western Railway vs. Indian Army
7:00 PM: IOB vs. ONGC

Saturday evening will also feature two of the most exciting features of the tournament, the Slam Dunk Competition and the Three Point Shootout. According to Vinod Muthukumar, one of the organizers of the event, the confirmed names for the Slam Dunk Competition so far are TJ Sahi, Jagdeep Singh, Arjun Singh, and Abhilek Paul.

There is only one group for the Women with these four teams: Southern Railway, SEC Railway, Karnataka, and Aamchi Mumbai.

Southern Railway, featuring India's basketball starlet Geethu Anna Jose and Anitha P, started off badly with close loss to SEC Railway. They went on to win their next two games against Karnataka and local favouties Aamchi Mumbai to enter the finals.

They will be joined by SEC Railway, who have won all their games, led mostly by the combined efforts of M. Pushpa and Anju Kakra.

Both the Men's and Women's Finals will be played on Sunday, February 28th. SEC Railway will play Southern Railway in the Women's Finals at 5:30 AM. The winners of the two Men's semi-finals will play the final at 7:30 the same evening.

The tournament is being played on international standard Teraflex courts and held under floodlights in a specially erected stadium. In an interesting new endeavour for Indian tournaments, a statistics programme acquired from FIBA website is being used to track individual and team statistics such points scored, shooting percentage, 3 point percentage, rebounds, assists, steals, etc. The information is regularly uploaded to the tournament's official website: www.ramumemorial.com.

As in the past, entry is free for spectators and this is being done especially to promote basketball among students and youth.

"The crowd is building day by day," said Muthukumar, "Now that the competition is getting stiffer, the audience is getting more eager. The semi final line up looks interesting."