A week ago, 3x3 Basketball went national and official in India, as the first ever Senior National 3x3 Basketball Championship was held in New Delhi. Now, the 3x3 fever trickles down to the youth too: from April 18-19, the 1st ever U18 3x3 National Basketball Championship for Boys & Girls will be held at the Guru Nanak Stadium in the city of Ludhiana, Punjab. Organized by the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), this championship will attract top state-level teams from across the country vying for the title.
Teams have already reported to the city for this championship. Participating players have to be born on or after January 1, 1995. If you haven’t been keeping up, here is a quick recap of the official rules of 3x3: Games will be played on the half-court. Each team can have four players – three on the court and one off the bench. Each field goal is worth one point and a three-pointer is two points. The first team to 21, or the first team leading at the end of 10 minutes, wins. The shot-clock is just 12 seconds long. If scores are tied after 10 minutes there will be overtime, and the first team with a two point lead wins.
This tournament will serve as a platform to pick India’s national 3x3 team for future FIBA competitions. The best performing players will be picked to play for the U18 FIBA Asia 3x3 Basketball Championships in Bangkok (Thailand) from May 22-24, 2013.
Tamil Nadu (Men) and Indian Railways (Women) won the 3x3 Senior Championship Delhi last week. Since this is a quicker format of the game, it is nearly impossible to predict the approach that the smaller teams will take under a shorter time frame. The favourites for the tournament in both boys and girls divisions could be Chhattisgarh, who won the Junior National Championship for both in Puducherry last year. Teams from Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Delhi (Boys) and Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (Girls) could be top contenders for the title as well.
