Bengaluru, 30th June 2017: The 34th Youth National Basketball Championship for Boys and Girls will be held at the Indoor Stadium, Gachibowli in Hyderabad from 1st to 8th July 2017.
The Championship is being organized by the Hyderabad District Basketball Association under the aegis of the Telangana Basketball Association and the Basketball Federation of India.
The opening ceremony will be held on Saturday, 1st July at 4 pm, with Shri T Padma Rao Goud (Minister for Sports and Youth Services as well as Excise & Prohibition) and Shri Dr Vivek Anand (Advisor to Government of Telangana & Chairman & Managing Director, Visaka Groups) as chief guests. Guests of honour include Shri G Kishan Reddy (MLA, BJP), Shri Burra Venkatesam (Telangana Principal Secretary, Youth Affairs & Sports), Shri K Govindaraj (President, BFI), Shri Chander Mukhi Sharma (General Secretary, BFI) and Shri Ragothaman (Treasurer, BFI). Special invitees include Shri Ranga Rao (President, Olympic Association of Telangana), Smt Dr Vidya Sravanthi (Co-option Member, GMHC), Shri S R Prem Raj (General Secretary, Olympic Association of Telangana) and Shri Arvind Krishna (Film Actor).
The fixtures and groupings have been announced. The prestigious Championship will feature 26 boys’ teams and 25 girls’ teams in the U16 age group, from various Indian States and Union territories, and will be played in a league cum knockout format.
The teams are grouped into two levels –Level 1 features the top 10 teams from the previous championship divided into two groups of five teams each (Group A and B), while Level 2 features the remaining teams divided into four groups (Group C, D, E, F).
In the league stages, all the teams play each of the other teams in their group once. The top three teams from each of the groups in Level 1 advance directly to the quarterfinals, while the fourth placed teams play pre-quarterfinal games against the top two teams from Level 2.
The competition is expected to be fierce beyond the immediate prospect of glory, because the teams that finish last in each of the groups in Level 1 are relegated to Level 2 for the next edition of the tournament, while the Level 2 teams that qualified for the pre-quarterfinals will replace them in Level 1 in the next edition
Over the years, this Championship has provided a platform for the country’s best players in the U16 category to showcase their talents. This allows selectors to identify and shortlist the most promising players and coaches to parachute into national team training camps with an eye towards participation in international events.
