BFI announces Indian School & College Basketball Leagues starting from December 2017

Nov 08, 2017

Bengaluru, 7th November 2017: Basketball Federation of India has announced the dates for the Indian School and College Basketball Leagues (ISBL and ICBL). ISBL will be held between 25th December 2017 - 15th March 2018 and ICBL will be held between 18th April to 31st July 2018 in each participating states. The winners of the Boys and Girls categories in School Leagues and Men and Women categories in College Leagues from each state will qualify for the Indian School & College Basketball Leagues - National Championship.

Logo of the ISB league. Image credits : Basketball Federation of India. Indian School and College Basketball League will create a structured, self-sustaining system which will serve as the platform to increase organized basketball participation at grassroots level and subsequently serve as the talent development system for the Indian National Teams. These leagues are organized in such a way that it extends to a period of around 6-8 weeks where each team plays only one match every week since it is a league and not a tournament. Also, the School Leagues have certain regulations which helps each and every player to get a good amount of playing time to showcase their talent. The previous editions of the School and College League have helped provide the Federation a wider talent pool out of which many of the top performers went on to represent India in different age groups. In 2014-15, Baladhaneshwar P from ISBL and Muin Bek Hafeez from ICBL were two of the biggest finds. Baladhaneshwar was one of the best performers in the School League and since then has represented India at the Youth and Junior level consistently and made his Senior team debut in this year's FIBA Asia Cup held in Lebanon in July along with Muin Bek who was also making his debut in the Indian team. INR 25,000 will be awarded to the State Level Champions in both ISBL and ICBL, whereas the first and second runners-up will get INR 15,000 and 10,000 each, respectively. The details, including dates and locations, for the Indian School & College Basketball Leagues - National Championship will be released soon. League Format: The number of teams participating in each League will be 16, except in case of Union territories where 8 teams in each group/section must participate. Teams will be split into groups of 8, each team will play all the other teams in the group for a total of each team playing 7 matches. The league will be played on a league cum knock-out format on both the state and national levels, it will be played over a minimum of 6 week period, with each team playing at least once per weak. The age limit for participation in ICBL will be under 25 years, whereas for ISBL it is under 19 years. Rankings will be done as per FIBA rules; win = 2 points, loss = 1 point, forfeit = 0 points. If any of the teams are tied even at the end, then classification is done using Goal Average(Point For / Points Against) for all games played. List of states organising School and College Leagues:

No. Name of State School College

Tamil Nadu Yes Yes

Kerala Yes Yes

Puducherry Yes Yes

Odisha Yes Yes

Chandigarh Yes Yes

Telangana Yes Yes

Gujarat Yes Yes

Himachal Pradesh Yes Yes

Haryana Yes Yes

Punjab Yes Yes

Karnataka Yes Yes

Andhra Pradesh Yes Yes

Uttar Pradesh Yes Yes

Delhi Yes Yes

West Bengal Yes Yes

Goa Yes No

Madhya Pradesh Yes Yes

Chhattisgarh Yes Yes

Bihar Yes Yes

Maharashtra Yes Yes

Rajasthan Yes Yes

Jammu and Kashmir Yes No Totals

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