Indian Senior Women to take part in William Jones Basketball Tournament in Chinese Taipei

A 17-women team of Senior Indian basketball players have been chosen as probables for The 33rd William Jones International Basketball Tournament, which will be held from July 31-August 4 in Chinese Taipei. The women’s tournament will be held at the Taipei Gymnasium in Taipei City.

A selection committee constituted by the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) has chosen a short-list of 17 players after observing their performance at the coaching camp at the KD Jadhav Stadium in New Delhi. The final team consisting of 12 players will be announced one week before the tournament begins.

Senior Women probables for 33rd William Jones Basketball Tournament:

Geethu Anna Jose
M. Pushpa
Anitha Pau Durai
Smruthi RK
Bharti Netam
Prashanti Singh
Harjeet Kaur
Akanksha Singh
Raspreet Sidhu
Asha Hegde
Aruna Kindo
Kruthika Laksman
S. Kokila
Sneha Rajguru
Shireen Limaye
Sonika
Amruta Bhuskute

The William Jones Cup is an international basketball tournament held annually in Taipei, Taiwan. It was named after Renato William Jones, a basketball promoter and one of the founders of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).

Other women’s team who have confirmed their participation in the women’s event this year are Japan National Team, Chinese Taipei National Team, Samsung Women’s Team, and Chinese Taipei University National Team.

This will be the first international action for the Indian National Basketball Team under new American head coach, Pete Gaudet. The tournament will also serve as preparation for the 24th FIBA Asia Championship for Women, to be held in Omura/Nagasaki, Japan, from 21-28 August.

Indian Youth Probables (Boys & Girls) called for coaching camp in New Delhi

32 Boys and 31 Girls of the Indian Youth (under-16) division have been called up for a coaching camp to be held at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall in New Delhi from June 15th – July 29th. A selection committee of the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) have selected these probables based on their performance at the 28th Youth National Basketball Championship for Boys & Girls in Nagpur from May 26th-June 2, 2011.

The camp in Delhi will determine India’s Youth National teams for FIBA Asia U16 Championships later in the year. The Indian U16 Boys side will get an opportunity to qualify for the 2nd FIBA Asia U16 Championship for Boys in Nha Trang City (Vietnam) from October 18-28, 2011. The Indian U16 Girls side will participate in the 2nd FIBA Asia U16 Championship for Girls in Urumqui (China) from October 5-12, 2011.

In addition to the players selected from the Youth Nationals, the eight Indian youngsters currently getting training at the IMG-Academy in Bradenton, Florida (USA) have also been invited to the camp in New Delhi.

Youth Probables

Boys

Om Jaiswal (Chhattisgarh)
Akash Bhasin (Chhattisgarh)
P. Murli (Chhattisgarh)
Ajay Pratap Singh (Chhattisgarh)
Dinesh Mishra (IMG Academy / Chhattisgarh)
Sanjeev Kumar (IMG Academy / Chhattisgarh)
Lawkesh Sharma (Chhattisgarh)
Narender (Delhi)
Akimjeet Singh Sohal (Delhi)
Pradeep Kumar (Delhi)
Panjak Rathee (Delhi)
Gaurav Ohlyan (Delhi)
Rohan Pethani (Gujarat)
Rajesh Sangwan (Haryana)
Himanshu Sharma (Haryana)
Vivek Sandhu (Haryana)
Shubham Mishra (Madhya Pradesh)
Syed Anam Ali (Madhya Pradesh)
Gopal Singh Rathee (Madhya Pradesh)
Ashiv Jain (IMG Academy / Madhya Pradesh)
Jagtap Rohan Ramesh (Maharashtra)
Shaikh Ibrahim Riyaz (Maharashtra)
Malik Saleem Mohd. Ibrahim (Maharashtra)
Kushmeet Singh (Punjab)
Loveneet Singh (Punjab)
Satnam Singh Bhamara (IMG Academy / Punjab)
Akashdeep Hazra (Punjab)
Navjot Singh (Rajasthan)
S. Karthickeyan (Tamil Nadu)
Himanshu Singh (Uttar Pradesh)
Abhishek Rai (Uttar Pradesh)
Sagar Joshi (West Bengal)

Girls

Sangeeta Das (Chhattisgarh)
Anjana Daisy Ekka (Chhattisgarh)
Poonam Chaturvedi (Chhattisgarh)
Pooja Ambishta (IMG Academy / Chhattisgarh)
A. Kavita (IMG Academy / Chhattisgarh)
Sangeetha Kaur (Chhattisgarh)
Sharanjeet Kaur (Chhattisgarh)
Soumya Babbar (IMG Academy / Delhi)
Rimpy Hooda (Haryana)
Anju Bhalotlia (Haryana)
Bharti Sihag (Haryana)
Komal Yadav (Haryana)
Praneetha S (Karnataka)
Karishma Rajan (Karnataka)
Prami P. Lal (Kerala)
Elizabeth Hilarious (Kerala)
Anathy Vimal (Kerala)
Poojamol KS (Kerala)
Ashwathy S. Thampi (Kerala)
Monika Gurjar (Madhya Pradesh)
Sruthi Menon (Maharashtra)
Ishwari Pingle (Maharashtra)
Krithika Divadkar (Maharashtra)
Shireen Limaye (Maharashtra)
Nirmal Kaur (Punjab)
Kulwinder Kaur (Punjab)
K. Devi Rajalaksmi (Tamil Nadu)
R. Sharmila (Tamil Nadu)
Shruti (Uttar Pradesh)
Barkha Sonkar (IMG Academy / Uttar Pradesh)
Madhu Kumari (West Bengal)

Definitely some interesting young players on the list - several of them have been in the fray for a while now, and a few made their mark at the Nagpur Youth Nationals recently.

First off, these are the kids who are at the IMG Academy in the USA, and will definitely be playing at the highest level because of their training and competition level - Boys: Satnam Singh Bhamara, Sanjeev Kumar, Dinesh Mishra, and Ashiv Jain. Girls: Barkha Sonkar, Pooja Ambishta, Soumya Babbar, and A. Kavita. These eight kids have been studying and playing there for almost a year now. The standout name amongst them is obviously of 7 foot 1 youngster Satnam Singh Bhamara, who, with his combination of size, skill, and youth, has become the Big Indian Basketball Hope.

Amongst the girls, the other star youngster is Maharashtra's Shireen Limaye, who is also the youngest player to be called up for India's Sr. Women's camp. Highly experienced at her age, Shireen will be one of the superstars of India's U16 Girls' squad.

Other players who had impressive outings at the Nagpur Youth Nationals are Kerala's Poojamal, who scored 40 points to go with 13 rebounds to lead her team to a gold medal win in the Girls' final, Chhattisgarh's Anjana Ekka, Maharashtra's Sruthi Menon, and Haryana's Rimpy Hooda.

One of the most interesting names in the girls' probables is of Poonam Chaturvedi, who at 6 foot 6 inches, is India's tallest female basketball player, and is still almost a month short of her 16th birthday. Originally from UP, Chaturvedi played for Chhattisgarh at the Youth Nationals, and despite her inexperience, was a major force in helping her team bag the silver medal.

In the Boys' list, there are several players from the gold winners Delhi, including Akimjeet Singh Sohal, Narendar, and Pradeep Kumar. Runners-up MP are represented by 3 players, including Syed Anam Ali and sharpshooter Shubham Mishra. Punjab's high-scoring 'Singh duo' of Loveneet and Kushmeet will also be attending. Other impressive performers were Akash Bhasin (Chhattisgarh), Saleem Ibrahim (Maharashtra), and Rakesh Sangwan (Haryana).

From player to coach, Manisha Dange looks to complete the hoops cycle

Could an early bloomer also be a late bloomer? How many stars dominate at a young age, and as they grow older, find the inspiration to bloom again, into a different kind of star? From a star young player, to an inspirational veteran, and now planting the seeds of a potential coaching career, Maharashtra’s Manisha Dange hopes to do it all.

Three months ago, Manisha Dange and Shireen Limaye were playing on the same court on the same squad: the former a 30-year-old legend of Maharashtra’s women’s basketball; the latter had just turned 16 and was already being touted as the next big thing in women’s basketball in India. Dange, as the team’s captain, and Limaye, as the young, do-it-all sparkplug, led an exciting Maharashtra Women’s team into the Federation Cup at Raipur.

Three months later, the faces are the same, but the roles have changed: it is the Youth (U16) National Basketball Championship in Nagpur, Maharashtra, Dange and Limaye’s home-court, and the Maharashtra team is captained by Limaye, who is the most experienced young star leading a group of girls who are relatively fresh to the big stage. But Dange is here too – staying involved with Maharashtra and her young teammate as the coach of the U16 side.

The transformation to coach for teammate has been seamless for Dange. “I’m only the team’s coach on the court,” Dange says, “Outside it, I’m more a Didi - an older sister – than a coach. The difference of age between me and Shireen or any of the other girls isn’t too much, so they are comfortable with me. I have to be strict but allow the girls to have their fun.”

“Because I’ve been a player myself I can understand the girls and know exactly how it feels to travel for a tournament, feel the pressure, and perform at this stage. During basketball games, working now as a coach, I get to see understand many of my own faults as a player and find a way not just to improve my coaching ability but also my playing ability.”

And as she continues to discover her coaching attributes and rediscover her talents as a player, Dange makes sure to indicate that she has enough gas to keep both her careers going. “I want to continue playing and coaching simultaneously,” she said, “This is just the first step: I want to keep progressing as a coach as time passes and keep playing for as long as possible, too.”

Her star player, Shireen Limaye, doesn’t believe that Dange’s shift from player to coach has been a complicated affair. “She has been and is still a very good player,” Limaye says of Dange, “Even as a team-mate, she is always a coach on court – she has always making sure to train us and give us advice, and we used to practice drills with her as team-mates that I now practice with her as coach. It is an advantage for us to have a coach who is also a good active player.”

This is Dange’s second attempt at leading Maharashtra’s U16 Girls squad at the Youth Nationals – she was also the team’s coach last year when they went for the Nationals in Trichy, Tamil Nadu. This time around, the pressure to perform as hosts and as one of the most talented young teams in the competition is squarely on Dange’s side.

“Our team has a lot of positives,” Dange said, “The biggest of them all, obviously, is Shireen. But this year, we have come prepared physically to be the best and put up a good show as the hosts. Before this tournament, the girls took part in an 18-day fitness camp in Vashi, which helped them improved their speed, agility and overall fitness.”

The current Maharashtra Girls side also has a good size advantage and will hope to exploit it against most of their other opponents.

As a player, Dange has been here and done it all before. Hailing from Thane in Mumbai, she picked up the game when she was only 12 years old, but didn’t make her first major Nationals until the youth/U16 stage, the same stage at which she has made her coaching debut nearly 15 years later. From then on, the game of basketball began opening several new avenues for her: she was picked to play for Railways at the age of 18 – a move she calls the ‘best moment of her basketball career’ – and she represented India in two crucial tournaments in 2007: the FIBA Asia Championships in South Korea and an Invitational Tournament in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.

Although she won’t be making a comeback to the Indian National team soon, she continues to be a dominating and respected figure in Maharashtra Basketball – besides, it is now the turn for her teammate/star-pupil to shine: Shireen Limaye has become the youngest player to get a call-up for the Indian Senior National Camp in New Delhi, and she will have a shot at making her own debut with India’s Senior National team at the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship in Japan this August.

As she has experienced the past and the evolving present of basketball in India, Dange is hopeful for the future that Limaye and other young stars of the country. “The current crop of stars have a good future,” she says, “They are getting a lot of opportunities now, and will soon get a lot more exposure and returns for their hard-work in the game.”

But for now, ‘Coach’ Dange – or Manisha Didi – has only one mission in mind: helping Limaye, Shruti Menon, Ayushi Gupta, and the rest of the young squad live up to their top billing and capture the Youth Championships on home soil. “We have a good team, and because we’re playing at home, we’re the favourites. Once the crowds get bigger, there will be more pressure on the girls to perform – I have to make sure that they blank out the outside noise and just focus on their game.”

And if anyone can help them deal with the pressure it’s their experienced coach – after all, she has been there, done that, and is now back to bloom again.

28th Youth Basketball Nationals tip off in Nagpur; Hosts Maharashtra start positively

Look no further if you want to spot the next basketball superstar of India: On Thursday, May 26th, the city of Nagpur in Maharashtra, popularly known as the ‘Orange City’, welcomed hundreds of under-16 boys and girls from two dozen states in India to take part in the 28th Youth National Basketball Championship for Boys & Girls, slated to take place from May 26th – June 2nd.

Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan got the games underway after inaugurating Nagpur’s brand new Indoor Stadium of the Divisional Sports Complex, but it was the hosts Maharashtra who got the hoop fans really fired-up with back to back wins for both the girls’ and the boys’ teams.

Chavan, who declared the new Indoor Stadium open on Thursday afternoon, welcomed the players and the spectators. “It feels great to be at this inauguration at the ‘second capital’ of Maharashtra, Nagpur,” Chavan said, “I’m glad to see the best young players here from all over the country of India.”

The first game following the opening was the highly touted Maharashtra Girls side, featuring superstar Shireen Limaye as captain, who is the youngest player to be called up for the Indian Senior National camp in New Delhi. Maharashtra didn’t disappoint, even though they faced a motivated Punjab squad, and raced away to a double digit lead in the first quarter. Maharashtra really perked up their defense in the second half, allowing only four points in the last 20 minutes of play, en route to a convincing 65-31 victory. Shruti Menon had a confident outing with 19 points for Maharashtra.

Maharashtra Boys started off their campaign with a tenaciously fought win over a gritty Karnataka side. Although Maharashtra led most of their way, Karnataka remained right on their tails, with big performances by Jeethender (24) and Melever (16). The second half was especially tightly contested but Maharashtra maintained their lead to notch a 63-50 win. Rohan Jagtap was the high scorer for the hosts with 17 points.

Meanwhile, Kerala Girls, the winners of last year’s tournament in Trichy, didn’t skip a beat as they started off with a dominating performance against Delhi. Kerala used hard-nosed defense and a balanced scoring threat to get an early lead over the team from the capital, and they carried their momentum throughout the game. It was an easy win for Kerala in the end, with the final score 54-13.

Important Scores

Boys

Group A: Maharashtra (Rohan Jagtap 17, Salim Malik 14) bt Karnataka (Jeethender 24, Melever 16), 63-50 (16-13,20-11,15-14,12-12).

Group C: Uttar Pradesh (Rahul Yadav 22, Ankit Malik 11, Abhishek Rai 10) bt Himachal Pradesh 77-40 (13-8, 16-10, 15-14, 33-8)

Girls

Group A: Maharashtra (Shruti Menon19, Shireen Limaye 15, Aditi Kamble 12) bt Punjab (Nirmal Kaur 13) 65-31 (22-11,18-16,16-2,9-2)

Group B: Chattisgarh (Sangeeta 21, Anjana Daisy 14, Poonam Chaturvedi 14) bt Uttarakhand, 90-19 (28-10, 28-2, 18-6, 16-1)

Group A: Kerala (Poojamal 14) bt Delhi 54-13 (21-4,6-1,15-5,12-3)

Group B: Haryana (Monika Vias 20, Bhakti Singh 15) bt Uttar Pradesh (Garima Singh 12,Shruti 16) 52-43 (11-14,8-6,16-17,17-6).

Hoops DNA: Shireen Limaye follows her mother's footsteps to basketball stardom

Nature or Nurture? It has been an age-old argument: are an individual’s personality and skills developed by their DNA, or are they developed by the way in which the individual is raised? Or to put it simply: Are we born the way we are, or do we become who we are because of the environment around us?

It’s a complicated debate with possibly no absolute answer: every individual seems to be influenced by a little bit of both.

Shireen Limaye, Maharashtra’s budding hoops star, is probably not going to be any help in solving the debate either. See, Shireen is lucky to have the best of both worlds: She’s got hoops in her DNA, as her mother, Suvarna Limaye, is a former player National level basketball player. But Shireen has also been nurtured to become the best player she can be, playing basketball under her mother’s coaching from when she was just five years old.

The fruits of her nature and nurture are now developing into an exciting final product. If you read this before Sunday, Shireen would still be 15-years-old. She turns 16 on February 13th, and at her young age, she has already charted great peaks. She is currently part of Maharashtra’s Federation Cup squad, as she is one of the youngest, if not the youngest participants at this ongoing championship in Raipur (Chhattisgar). She got her first senior call-up for Maharashtra at the Sr. Nationals in Delhi last month, and a confident showing proved that she could hang tough even with women twice her age.

“Of course, the first time I took the court as a Senior player, I felt a lot of pressure going against the best,” Shireen admits, “But at the same time I felt very proud to be there.”

Shireen’s mother, Suvarna, says that Shireen has grown up around the game. Suvarna, who is a coach in Pune, says that she used to carry Shireen on the court since she was just six months old! Shireen began training under her mother, and by age nine, she became the youngest to represent the Pune district in the U13 tournament.

“In a way, it was really easy to work with Shireen,” says Suvarna, her mother and her coach, “She has basketball in her genes! But also because she is incredibly passionate about learning the game.”

Shireen has much more than her mother’s basketball skills in her genes: her father, Vijay Limaye, has been a National-Level swimmer; her elder brother, Animish Limaye, has represented India’s U17 basketball side.

With this sporting background, Shireen had no trouble thriving in an environment where she was encouraged to play the sport she loved. Her high-point came when she represented the Indian Youth Team at the Youth Asian Basketball Championships, which were held in Pune in August 2009.

But she had a curious change of course since: Shireen got an interesting offer to change sports for a little while and represent India in the Netball tournament held at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. She practiced for a year with the new Netball team, before getting a chance to represent the country in Delhi, but this time, in a different sport.

“It was strange for me to switch to Netball at first, and the first two weeks it took some time to adjust but after that I got a grip of it,” said Shireen, “When we finally got to Delhi, it was great! We had a cheering Indian crowd behind us to make a good atmosphere.”

It took another brave, sudden transition in sports for Shireen again: The Commonwealth Games, where she represented India in Netball, lasted from October 3-14, 2010. 10 days later, Shireen joined the Maharashtra Junior Basketball Team that played at the Junior National Championships in Vashi. Along with other young stars in the team, Shireen helped Maharashtra ride the home support to reach the final of the tournament before they lost to Kerala.

“The transition between sports, I admit, was pathetic!” Shireen exclaimed, “But I had to manage.”

She also vehemently denies any further calling towards Netball. “I will always pick basketball! I don’t think Netball will have a future for me!”

As long as she can keep honing her skills, Shireen is sure to have an improving future in the game. She plays a versatile game, switching between guard and forward positions with ease. At 5”10, she is taller than most girls she competes with at her position, and with good ball-handling skills, she is looking to perfect her point-guard game which will allow her to overpower smaller opponents. She has also learnt from watching her mother play: “My mother had really good pivot moves in the post, something that she worked on with me and I have been able to pick up.”

With a lot of potential waiting ahead, Shireen is ambitious about her future.“After I finish my 10th Boards, I want to go to America to study,” she says, “In five years, I wish to see myself in the WNBA.”

Blessed with the perfect blend of nature and nurture, Shireen has little reason to doubt her dreams!