Hindustan University (Chennai) strike gold at Inter Zonal All India University Championship

A dominant end-to-end performance by Chennai's Hindustan University over Punjab University (Chandigarh) in the Final saw them emerge champions of the 2013-14 Inter Zonal All India University Championship for Men on Saturday, February 8th in Varanasi. The inter-zonals, which pitted together 20 of the top Indian college teams from five zones around the country tipped off on February 3rd and was hosted at the refurbished Maharaja Dr. Vibhutinarain Singh Indoor Stadium in the city's iconic Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

Photo Credit: Ekalavyas.com

Hindustan took an early lead in the final and never looked back. Nigerian point guard Agu, who had been in blistering form throughout the tournament, scored a game-high 34 points for Chennai in the final to help his squad take a double-digit lead in the first half and stretch it out to ultimately an easy, 80-62 victory. Pal added 20 for the winners.

The tournament featured 20 top college sides from North, East, West, South, and Central Indian Zones. India basketball legend and Dhyan Chand Award winner Ram Kumar was present as the chief guest at the final day.

The third/fourth place game was also held on Saturday, as Amritsar's Guru Nanak Dev University showed blew past Bangalore's Jain University to a comfortable 81-61 triumph. Guriqbal (20) and Navalpreet (16) led the way for Guru Nanak Dev, while Jain University were led by high scorers Vinoth (20) and Kaif Zia (18).

Photo Credit: Ekalavyas.com

For his consistently dominant performance throughout, Hindustan's Agu was named MVP of the tournament.

Check out the comprehensive coverage on Ekalavyas.com for more in-depth recap, stories, and photos from the championship.

On a personal note, I'm glad that BHU and Varanasi - my home town - were able to host this event (fairly) successfully and without much incident or controversy. Four years ago at the same university in the same tournament, players from several teams alleged that they were forced to forfeit games at gunpoint in a farce that exposed the harsh corruptions in Indian basketball. In the 2010 Final, the entire starting five of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth (MGKV) refused to play against the hosts BHU. And a lot more other teams and players cleared the way to easy BHU's route to the Final, too.

So no guns or death-threats this time around (as far as we know), but there still a need to clean up those refs from time to time. #VTown.