TN teams off to winning start in Senior National Basketball

Chennai, Jan 17 (PTI) Host Tamil Nadu thrashed Haryana 113-58 today in its opening Group 'B' men's match in Level 1 of the 68th Senior National Basketball Championship at the Nehru Indoor stadium here.

The women started strongly, beating Madhya Pradesh 68-48 in a convincing manner in Group A match in Level 1.

Both the Tamil Nadu men and women looked strong in their matches and enjoyed healthy leads right through.

For the men, Justin Gnanaraj was in good form, scoring 22 points.

Defending champion Uttarakhand got off its campaign with an easy 85-62 win over Odisha in a Group 'A' fixture.

In another match, a strong Punjab beat Gujarat 76-65 in Group 'B' with NBA player Satnam Singh scoring 17 points.

Results: Men: Level 1: Group A: Uttarakhand 85 (Mohit Bhandari 20, Murali Krishna 17) beat Odisha 62 (Suman Sahoo 19);

Karnataka 82 (Arvind 22, Anil Kumar 16) beat Rajasthan 65 (Vinod Kumar 20, Sharad 19).

Group B: Punjab 76 (Gurvinder Singh Gill 22, Satnam Singh 17, Rajveer Singh 14) beat Gujarat 65 (Harpal 17, M Kasirajan 15); Tamil Nadu 113 (Justin 22) beat Haryana 58 (Ankit 18).

Level 2: Group C: Chhattisgarh 49 (Pratham Singh 15) beat Goa 32 (Flobert 14).

Group F: Maharashtra 65 (Rohit Kumar 13) beat Bihar 41 (Amit Gahlot 19);UP 88 (Sagar Joshi 28) beat West Bengal 76 (M Vivek 29, Vishal Kumar 29).

Group D: Andhra Pradesh 76 (T Tammu Sandeep 20, Murali Krishna 17) beat J&K 75 (Ranbir Singh 18, Iqbal 19);Telangana 54 (Sri Ganesh Patil 15) beat Puducherry 22.

Women: Level 1: Group A: Karnataka 82 (Bhandavya 31) beat Chhattisgarh 47 (Seema 17);Tamil Nadu 68 beat Madhya Pradesh 48.

Group B: Rajasthan 89 (A S Thampi 27, P Divya 18)) beat Telangana 61 (Nisha Sharma 31); Railways 89 (S Menon 15, Navaneetha 16) beat Delhi 39 (Pratima Singh 16)