National Basketball Championship returns to city after seven years

The championship returns to the city after a gap of seven years. The last time it hosted the event was in 2011. Home side TN made it to the final but eventually lost to Punjab. It will look to go one step better as the trend continued a couple of years back when it was defeated by Uttarakhand in the last hurdle.      

In a welcome change, the state association has also appointed Serbian duo of Milan Opacic and Aleksandar Virijevic as the head coach and assistant coach respectively of both the men’s and women’s teams from the state. 

“The way the game is played here is completely different to what we have in Europe. Tamil Nadu has done decently over the years. But it has failed to defeat heavyweights like Punjab and Services. I have brought a few changes into the system and I am hopeful of clinching the championship,” said Milan during a press briefing.  

One of the members of the men’s 15-member squad, Prasanna Venkatesh, said, “The association has put in huge efforts in roping in top-class coaches, including two from Serbia. Since we are the hosting state, people expect us to win the championship. We came so close to bagging it two years back. But this time we are an even stronger unit.” 

The ‘Tamil Nadu Basketball Hall of Fame’ was also launched during the event and three members were inducted into it for their services towards the sport either as a player or as a contributor. 

The esteemed trio who bagged the honour of being inducted first were T Vijayragavan, Amarnath and “Jumpball” Padmanabhan.