Bengaluru, 7th July 2017: The Indian women’s basketball team continued their campaign at the 39th William Jones Cup International Basketball Tournament against South Korea.
The team put in a much improved performance after the first two games of the tournament. Going into the fourth quarter, the Indian women were trailing 47-37. Point guard Kavita Akula and captain Anitha Paul Durai, who was restored to the starting line-up after being rested in the last game, rallied strongly to close the gap to five, but the team eventually lost 56-61.
Head coach Zoran Visic continued to chop and change the starting line-up with one eye on the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup in Bangalore later this month. He handed Barkha Sonkar, Shireen Limaye, and Poonam Chaturvedi their first starts of the tournament. Shireen Limaye made the most of the opportunity, scoring 6 points and racking up 5 rebounds.
Jeena Skaria was the top performer for the Indian women, coming off the bench to drop 9 points and grab an impressive 13 rebounds. Collectively, the Indians were strong off the boards, out-rebounding the Korean women 41-25. The team’s shooting from beyond the arc was also much improved, with an impressive rate of 36%.
Next up, the Indian women play China ‘Blue’ on 8th July at 1900 hrs CST (1630 IST).
South Korea (Kim Hyeon 16 pts; Kim Min Jung 13 pts; Kim Bo Mi 13 pts) bt India (Jeena Skaria 9 pts, 13 rebs; Anitha Paul Durai 7 pts; Navaneetha Pattemane Udayaumar 7 pts) 56-51 [17-13, 11–10, 19–14, 9–14]
