FIBA U18 Asia Cup 2024: India finishes 8th
FIBA U18 Asia Cup 2024: India finishes 8th
Just like how India’s campaign began exactly a week ago with a blowout loss to a faster team (Korea), it has now ended against a similarly paced team in Japan, 50-100.
Amman, Jordan: Just like how India’s FIBA U18 Asia Cup 2024 campaign began exactly a week ago with a blowout loss to a faster team (Korea), it has now ended against a similarly paced squad in Japan, 50-100.
The two sides faced off in the final 7-8 classification game, and yet again, India’s guards struggled to keep possession of the ball, turning it over a whopping 30 times.
India’s Perpetual Turnover Problem
The Indian basketball selection committee, and perhaps the entire basketball administrative establishment, and most importantly the coaches - right from the national to the state and district level must seriously reflect on what they can do to tackle the country’s ‘turnover’ problem.
To those unfamiliar with the nuances of basketball - ‘turnovers’ are when a team loses possession of the ball - usually against faster and quicker defenders.
As was evident on full display in the FIBA U18 Asia Cup 2024, even the best Indian guards were simply no match for perimeter defenders from Korea, Japan or Iran.
Overall, India averaged 22.3 turnovers per game, which was the third worst overall, and worst among the 12 knockout teams.
Domestic competitions not ‘intense’ enough?
Clearly, something is lacking in India’s domestic basketball architecture - either our national competitions are not ‘competitive’ enough, our scouting and selections are not robust enough, or our camps are not preparing our players well enough for the rigours of international basketball. There is also the persisting issue of zero ‘exposure’ games prior to premier continental events.
The best guess is that India’s turnover woes is a combination of the above factors.
The longer this difficulty persists, the louder will be the clamour to include at least one speedy point guard from a North Eastern State like Mizoram.
No doubt, India did well to initially exceed expectations by progressing to the quarterfinals - a first since 2016. Thereafter, however, the fact that it finished 8th out of 8 teams - including a 50-point loss against the eventual 7th placed team, shows the yawning gap between being in the top 8 versus belonging in the top 8.
India (Mirthun Vel Dhanasekar 15 pts 8 turnovers, Lavish 10 pts 5 turnovers) lose to Japan (Riku Segawa 21 pts, Shogo Takata 19 pts, Riku Sugeno 13 pts) 50-100 [10-26, 12-17, 15-34, 13-23]
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