BPHC keep clean slate

Hyderabad: BPHC maintained their clean slate brushing aside the stiff challenge of Hoopsters Club 75-53 thereby topping the pool to enter the knockout stages of promotion from Level-IV to Level III in the Hyderabad District Basketball Association’s Annual League Basketball Championship on Monday.

BPHC mainly depended on drive-ins by Sachin and Anirudh who combined well with Anish to score 24 points in the first period. However, two 3-pointers apiece by Lokesh and Prashanth kept Hoopsters Club in the game as BPHC led 24-18 at end of first quarter.

In the second quarter, Hoopsters tightened their defence to restrict BPHC to just eight points and in turn scored through Abhinav to reduce the lead to just four points as BPHC led 32-28 at half time.

After change of ends BPHC regrouped with Siddharth and Raghav using their height to good effect, blocking many drive-ins by the Hoopsters cagers to restrict them to just five points in the third quarter. In turn, BPHC scored heavily (23 points) through Sachin, Vamshi and Anish to take a massive 55-33 lead at the end of the third quarter.

In the evenly contested fourth quarter both teams scored 20 points apiece but BPHC’s lead was massive to overcome.

Earlier, Sharp Shooters scored a hard fought 40-28 win over Hoopsters Club after leading 22-20 at half time. Sharp Shooters played a fast paced game from the start and were scoring through fast breaks through Manideep with some immaculate assists from Vineeth to lead 11-6 at the end of 1st quarter.

However in the 2nd quarter Hoopsters Club regrouped aided by 3 consecutive baskets from Lokesh as Sharp Shooters led by 2 points at 22-20. After change of ends the match went nip and tuck as Keshav scored for Sharp Shooters and Hoopsters were catching up through James as Sharp Shooters led 30-28 at the end of 3rd quarter. In the 4th quarter Sharp Shooters did tight defense to blank the Hoopsters Club and in turn scored 10 points through Daniyal and Vineet to finally win the match 40-28.