Four Indian girls selected for the NCAA Next Generation camp in the USA

'March Madness', the annual NCAA college basketball tournament in the USA, is here. And this year, a few young Indians will get closely involved in that wonderful festival of hoops.

For the second year, the NCAA, the NBA, and USA Basketball are joining hands for NCAA Next Generation, described as an "unprecedented opportunities for potential future student-athletes and celebrate the future of college basketball." Last year, the Next Generation programme brought top high-school age prospects to witness the NCAA's tournament first-hand while also take part in on-court/off-court programming.

Returning for the second year, this camp will feature a Women's Next Generation event, too, featuring high-school age players from USA and those picked from NBA Academies around the world. This is where the Indian participants come in: four Indian girls who shone at this year's Women's camp at the NBA India Academy will be heading for five-day extensive training in the United States. The camp will be held in Tampa, Florida, from April 3-7. This trip will include the opportunity to attend the NCAA Women's Final Four in Tampa to watch the best collegiate players in the USA in action.

Participants from other international women's academies including Africa, Australia, China, Mexico, and Europe will also take part. The camp will be led by NBA Academy Women's programme's technical directors Jennifer Azzi and Blair Hardeik and culminate with exhibition games between the participants.

India's invitees to the camp are: Ann Mary Zachariah (Kerala), Grishma Niranjan (Karnataka), Harsimran Kaur (Punjab), and Siya Deodhar (Maharashtra). Out of this group, Niranjan was the MVP of this year's Women's camp at the NBA India Academy. This will be Niranjan's second recent trip to the USA, after she took part in the Basketball Without Borders global camp in Charlotte during the NBA All Star Weekend.

An in-depth preview of the camp, including profile/interviews of the participating Indian players, was written by Amit Sampat for The Times of India and can be accessed here.

"Next Generation is a valuable initiative to work with our stakeholder groups to unify the game," said NCAA Vice President of Women’s Basketball Lynn Holzman. "Including women’s programming for the first time in the upcoming Women’s Final Four is an exciting opportunity, and we look forward to meeting and working with these women’s players from all over the world."

NBA Academy India to host second Women's programme next week

In 2017, the NBA opened doors to its first-ever elite India basketball Academy in Greater Noida, inviting dozens of the top young men from around the country to practice, study, breathe, and live basketball. While the boys have been lodged as permanent boarders at the Academy itself, the NBA extended its reach last year to invite talented young women, too, for a first-time women's programme, featuring international basketball trainers to conduct the camp. The programme was a huge success, shifting the spotlight towards the top young female players in India, and famously, allowing the opportunity for Bengaluru's Sanjana Ramesh to be singled out and earn an NCAA D1 scholarship to Northern Arizona.

Now, less than eight months after the first camp, the NBA will host the second NBA Academy India Women's Programme, at the Jaypee Greens Integrated Sports Complex in Greater Noida from January 22-25, 2019. 24 female prospects aged 17-and-under have been invited from across the country to participate in this camp. 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame member Jennifer Azzi and former college coach Blair Hardiek – the global technical directors for women’s programming across the league’s seven academies – will oversee this year’s camp.

Last year, Sanjana Ramesh and Vaishnavi Yadav were named camp co-MVPs.