Jeena shines in Taiwan

She is regarded as one of India’s most promising basketball players. P.S. Jeena did little harm to that reputation when she made her senior international debut at the William Jones Cup tournament, which concluded at Miaoli County, Taiwan, on ...

An eventful basketball showcase at BFI's Junior Expo in Delhi

- Karan Madhok The youngest kids were just eight years old, each with hands so tiny that even all ten fingers wouldn’t be enough to get the grasp of a large basketball. Standing opposite them were the specialists, ‘All Star’ ...

Indian referee Michael Vino officiated final of 2011 FIBA Women's ABC

- Karan Madhok While the rest of the basketball programme in India continues aspirations to grow and achieve higher standards, there is one field in which we already ...

Q&A: NBA-India's Akash Jain - "Indian youth has the hunger to learn & enjoy basketball"

- Karan Madhok The third season of the Mahindra NBA Challenge (MNC) – the largest, multi-city, community-based basketball league in India – tips on in Mumbai on Saturday. ...

India's U16 Boys coach JP Singh: "We felt we could beat any team except for China"

- Karan Madhok 10th place in 2009, 10th place in 2011: if the final result is to be believed, there was no improvement in the basketball team that ...

India's U16 Boys coach JP Singh: "We felt we could beat any team except for China"

- Karan Madhok 10th place in 2009, 10th place in 2011: if the final result is to be believed, there was no improvement in the basketball team that ...

Nawabketball? Lucknow has its own special liaison with hoops

- Karan Madhok Known to most as the ‘City of Nawabs’, Lucknow is a city that has popular across the country for its history of Kings and Nawabs, ...

Why Basketball? 7 young ballers reveal what drew them to love playing hoops

- Karan Madhok In its immense length, breadth, and variety, there are few if any countries as unique as India. In the basketball realm, this uniqueness is reinforced ...

Q&A: Steve Smith - "Basketball in India is moving into a positive direction"

- Karan Madhok If you followed NBA basketball closely in the 90s, there is little chance that you would’ve missed the great Steve Smith. Boasting a buttery-smooth jump ...

Hareesh Koroth: Unexpected Rise; Unfinished Business

- Karan Madhok Unexpected At the Asian Games in Guangzhou (China) last year, the Indian Men’s Basketball ...

Kerala Basketball: Southern Supremacy

- Karan Madhok Two months ago, India’s most talented and most recognisable basketball player, Geethu Anna Jose, conquered new ground: Jose became the first Indian to be invited ...

Kenny Natt, Pete Gaudet, & Zak Penwell hold clinic for coaches at Junior Nationals

- Karan Madhok When the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) brought world-class American coaches Kenny Natt, Pete Gaudet, and Zak Penwell to work with the Indian National teams, they also brought coaches who weren’t going to be satisfied by working ...

Capital Gains: A short story of Basketball in Delhi

- Karan Madhok “Delhi is the center – it features everyone from all over the country, people from near and far who make this city their home.” ...

Barkha Sonkar: No Fear

- Karan Madhok At first glance, Barkha Sonkar is the exact opposite of what you would expect a dominating basketball player to look like. She’s short (only five ...

How to become a better referee - Naresh Aneja, FIBA Commissioner

- Naresh Aneja, FIBA Commissioner Please give some thought to the characteristics that can help you to become a successful official in basketball, and in other sports, too. ...

Interview FIBA commissioner Danapal Veerasamy Ponniah

- M.Rajalingam [www.indiabasket.co.in] A national referee in India since 1986 and an influential force in Tamil Nadu basketball, Danapal Veerasamy Ponniah successfully qualified as an International Commissioner for ...

Zak Penwell: Indian Basketball's New Workout Plan

- Karan Madhok Nothing fills a need better than what is exactly needed to fill that need. A perfect fit to an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. ...

Pete Gaudet - Q&A: The Hoops Scientist

- Karan Madhok If basketball was a science, then Pete Gaudet would be found in the lab all day: mixing the right chemicals to ...

Kenny Natt: Basketball in India is ready for the first steps in a long journey

- Karan Madhok "Why India?" That was the most common question thrown at 52-year-old basketball coach Kenny Natt when he faced some of the top sports journalists and writers ...

With new indoor stadium, Nagpur looks to become a major centre for basketball in India

- Karan Madhok In the city of Nagpur in Maharashtra is the ‘Zero Mile Stone’, the spot ‘geographical centre’ of India. The Zero Mile Stone is supposedly equidistant from all corners of India. The exact geographical coordinates will obviously be ...

Despite QF exit, Haryana Boys basketball takes a big step forward

- Karan Madhok It seemed too good to be true. A side pooled into the lower level of the tournament demolishes every rival that comes its way and ...

Poonam Chaturvedi : The next next big thing

Off the court, she quietly tries to hide behind her teammates. But while silence may deny us from hearing her, she can’t stay visibly hidden for too long. A month shy of her 16th birthday, Poonam Chaturvedi is already ...

From player to coach, Manisha Dange looks to complete the hoops cycle

- Karan Madhok Could an early bloomer also be a late bloomer? How many stars dominate at a young age, and as they grow older, find the inspiration to bloom again, into a different kind of star? From a star ...

Brandon Jennings in India: "Basketball is an easy game that anyone can enjoy"

- Karan Madhok Brandon Jennings isn't exactly the typical NBA star. While most of the NBA's best players follow a similar path to stardom (High school star, College ...

TJ Sahi: 'Air India' still taking flight

- Karan Madhok There are few personalities in Indian basketball as simultaneously exciting and enigmatic, unifying and divisive, and polarising in every sense of the word, as Talwinderjit Singh "TJ" Sahi. Fans know of him as the explosive dunker, as ...

NBA's Greg Stolt: "In India, Basketball thrives because of the people's passion."

- Karan Madhok There could perhaps be no more suitable candidate for the NBA to send to India to help promote the game than Greg Stolt. Stolt, who ...

Geethu Anna Jose - Q&A: WNBA Dreams

- Karan Madhok Two weeks ago, the dreams of lakhs of Indian basketball players and fans came one step closer to realisation, as word got out that India’s superstar Center Geethu Anna Jose is set to be offered tryouts ...

Shooting For Success share high-flying exciting hoops in India

- Karan Madhok David “DJ” Jones was born in California and now spends his time working in San Antonio, Texas with his basketball camp/foundation, Shooting For Success (SFS). Funny then, that the city where he hears the crowds offering him ...

Indian All Stars sparkle Mumbai with two electrifying games

- Karan Madhok The best basketball players in India came out to put up an extraordinary display of skill, athletic ability, and hoops intelligence at the Mastan YMCA ...

Akanksha Singh: Small Wonder

- Karan Madhok 11 years ago, the Varanasi District girls basketball team that was headed for the Under-17 School Nationals in Gorakhpur had a little problem. They only had 11 players on the squad, and needed a 12th ...

Jayasankar Menon: A Hoops Odyssey

Karan Madhok Imagine you're in the theatre. The drama on stage is the tale of a legend. You have heard about him before, maybe even seen ...

Yadwinder Singh: Indian Basketball's Energy Bar

- Karan Madhok As the opposing team's best player dribbles towards his basket, Yadwinder Singh claps his hands together, almost violently, psyching himself up on defense. With an agile and quick 6 foot 6 inch frame, he is capable of ...

With experience on their side, ONGC aim to win their third straight Federation Cup

- Karan Madhok One look at the team list for ONGC, and it’s immediately clear that there is something special about this team. Of all the team’s playing at the Federation Cup in Raipur, ONGC might not feature most of the current crop of India’s internationals (that honour goes to Western Railways), or feature some of the game’s exciting youngsters who play for teams like Billai Steel Plant, but they’re a squad blessed with some of ...

Hoops DNA: Shireen Limaye follows her mother’s footsteps to basketball stardom

- Karan Madhok Nature or Nurture? It has been an age-old argument: are an individual’s personality and skills developed by their DNA, or are they developed by the way in which the individual is raised? Or to put it simply: Are we born the way we are, or do we become who we are because of the environment around us? It’s a complicated debate with possibly no absolute answer: every individual seems to be influenced by a ...

With Chhattisgarh's first indoor stadium, Raipur bids to enter the Basketball world

- Karan Madhok There is one side of India that the world knows well and recognizes. This is the side that features the wide roads and super-fast Metro trains in New Delhi, or the Bollywood stories and the glamour from Mumbai, or the burgeoning IT/BPO spheres in cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore. But then there is another India, which houses the large majority of the Indian people, and which has overseen a quiet but incredible economical surge. ...

Arjun Singh: Point Perfect

- Karan Madhok As a chubby young child, Arjun Singh got the nickname ‘Golu’, which literally translated, means 'Round One'. As he grew older though, he left the chubbiness and roundness behind him – but it was another round thing that caught his full attention.   The basketball. From the looks of it, this new ‘Golu’ in Arjun’s life is likely to stick with him forever. Fulfilling his potential as an explosive youth star, Arjun Singh has become one of ...

FIBA Rules Changes implemented in FIBA Asia from January 1, 2011.

Excerpts from articles by FIBA Asia Technical Director Col. Lee Kak Kuan   FIBA Official Rules Changes has taken effect from Oct 1, 2010. Some of these changes were ...

Geethu Anna Jose - "Every time I enter the court, I want to play the best game of my life"

- Karan Madhok It's the first quarter of the Women's Final of the National Championship, the biggest basketball competition in India. A large crowd has come this cold, ...

2010 – The year in Indian Basketball

A decade or two from now, when looking back at the success of basketball in India, 2010 will stand as the marquee year that changed almost everything. In a single, busy year, basketball took the biggest strides in India, ...

Delhi sets the biggest stage for the biggest games

- Karan Madhok National Basketball Championships have been held in India before – 60 times before to be exact – but there is something special about the 61st. ...

Vishesh Bhriguvanshi: Striving for success

- Karan Madhok In Varanasi, one of the oldest living cites in the world, they say that history of the world moves in a cyclical motion. Events repeat themselves one after the other every generation in the city, a cycle of good and evil and life and death, over and over and over for infinity in time. They say that even if the rest ...

Delhi showcases its hoops spirit at the Mahindra NBA Challenge

- Karan Madhok Next to a dusty yet busy basketball court at the Bal Bharti School (Karol Bagh) in New Delhi, a bunch of young adolescents warm up enthusiastically to the beats of rap music from the PA system nearby. ...

Anitha P. Won't Back Down

- Karan Madhok The Delhi Commonwealth Games may have missed out on a basketball tournament, but four years ago, the competition took place at the Games in Melbourne. ...

Tamil Nadu run 'n gun into the Final!

- Karan Madhok With no shortage of attacking talent, the Tamil Nadu Junior Boys' team are making waves over at the 61st IMG-Reliance National Basketball Championships at Vashi (Navi Mumbai). Led by the wily and skilled star G. Sivabalan, TN ...

Chhattisgarh: Basketball's best kept secret

Chhattisgarh: Basketball's best kept secret -- Karan Madhok The first quarter has ended. The scoreboard reads: Chhattisgarh ...

Dishant Shah: Sky's the Limit

Dishant Shah" Sky's the Limit - Karan Madhok If it hadn't been for a few encouraging coaches, we would have lost one of India's rising young basketball talents to another sport. At 18, Dishant Shah from Baroda is slowly beginning to make a name for himself at the highest level of basketball in the country. The ...

From the WNBA to India - Tamika Raymond takes on a brand new challenge

From the WNBA to India - Tamika Raymond takes on a brand new challenge ...

Bill Harris Q & A: "Basketball in India is a goldmine waiting to be developed"

Bill Harris Q & A: "Basketball in India is a goldmine waiting to be developed" - Karan Madhok A little more than a week ago, former Wheaton college basketball coach William (Bill) Harris was appointed as the head coach of the Indian Senior Men's Basketball team for the upcoming Asian Games. Harris is ...

American Basketball Coach Bill Harris Appointed To Lead Indian Sr. Men’s National Team

William R. Harris has been appointed as the head coach for the Indian Sr. Men’s Basketball team for the 16th Asian Games slated to be held in November. Harris will be working with the Indian team in Chennai before leading them for the Games, which will be held in Guangzhou (China) ...

Awareness for the Budding Referee Course in Indian Basketball

- Shiba Maggon   ...

Little Mountain town of Kangra soaks in basketball culture

Little Mountain town of Kangra soaks in basketball culture - Karan Madhok Think Kangra. Think a quiet ...

Basketball helps young players realise their dreams

Basketball helps young players realise their dreams - Karan Madhok Last week, eight young India basketball players, blessed with good fortune and backed up with hard work, finally made their way to begin their education as student athletes at the IMG Basketball Academy in Bradenton, Florida (USA). The eight were chosen as part of a ...

USA wins gold at FIBA World Championships

Battling a raucous and hostile home crowd against hosts Turkey in the Final, USA won the gold at the 2010 FIBA World Championships in Istanbul on Sunday, 81-64. Team USA went through the tournament undefeated. USA’s star forward Kevin ...

Turkey FIBA World Championship experiences motivates Indian youngsters

Turkey FIBA World Championship experiences motivates Indian youngsters - Karan Madhok "My ambition is to there, on that basketball court, representing India in the basketball world championships!" 14-year-old Poojamal from the town of Kottayam in Kerala got to realise an amazing dream last week - she was part of the lucky few ...

Spanish NBA superstar Pau Gasol brings basketball to India

Spanish NBA superstar Pau Gasol brings basketball to India - Karan Madhok From World Basketball Champion to ...

India youngsters to attend FIBA "Children of the World" camp in Istanbul

Two Indian sub-junior level players, Poojamal from Kerala and Yogesh Kanderiya from Rajasthan, have been selected by BFI to be India's official representatives in FIBA's "Children of the World" camp in Istanbul, Turkey, set to be held around the FIBA Basketball World Championships. The two youngsters will be accompanied by coach P. Deepa Sundari from Tamil Nadu for this experience from August 24-31. The ...

Satnam Singh: Larger than Life

The first thing I notice is his shoes. Size 22, made of some obscure shoe brand that I haven't heard of. That is the first thing I ask him, too, and he confirms to me that they are custom ...

Delhi League tips off in city schools

Imagine being in school. It's the morning session, and the recess bell has just rung. Well of course, the first thing you do is run out to the playing field to chase your friends around, kick a football, or ...

Dwight Howard: "Basketball brings people together."

Akash Jain (Director, International Development - India, NBA) and Harish Sharma (Secretary-General, BFI) present Dwight Howard with a jersey at the Ambience Mall in Gurgaon on Friday. ...

Basketball's Youth Brigade

Students return to India from University of Delaware programme to support BFI - Karan Madhok From the fireworks ...

Moulding the stars of tomorrow

IMG-Academy coaches train with talented youngsters - Karan Madhok Seated amongst the anxious and excited parents of ...

Former NBA player Marty Conlon assists the Mahindra-NBA Challenge in Bangalore

After spending a decade as a hard-working journeyman around the NBA and around the world, Marty Conlon is back in India to share some of his experience and wisdom with hoop dreamers in India! Conlon has been brought in ...