Video: TJ Sahi vs. Yi Jianlian

You may have already heard of Talwainderjit Singh "TJ" Sahi. The 6'2" Punjab point guard is one of the finest players in the country and even took his game to a division II team in California.

Here is a famous video of TJ Sahi leading the Indian team in an international game last year against Asian powerhouses China. China played without injured superstar Yao Ming. Sahi faced off against Yi Jianlian, who plays for the New Jersey Nets in the NBA. Predictably, China whooped our asses, but TJ showed flashes of brilliance, usually being one step ahead of everyone else on the court.



Find out more about Sahi on his official website, TJSahi.net

Indian head coach to coach coaches in Kochi

I'm childishly giddy about writing the following sentence: Alexsander Bucan, the head coach of the Indian Men's Basketball Team 'The Young Cagers', will be coaching hundreds of Indian basketball coaches in Kochi.

Coach Coach Hota Hai.

From the Press Trust of India:

In order to bring about a standardisation in the coaching system, the Association of Basketball Coaches in Kerala will be conducting a five-day Clinic here from March 7 to 11.
Joseph Chaco, Secretary, Association of Basketball Coaches, Kerala, said one of the drawbacks in Indian basketball coaching system is the lack of a uniform approach and this aspect is reflected in the quality of coaching that is being imparted in various schools and colleges in the country.
Over 100 coaches, both professional and amateur, will attend the camp, he said.

The course content covers a wide range of subjects including techniques, tactics, sports science, nutrition and officiating, he said.

Keep your eye on this news - if succesful, such camps to coach coaches will only help to spread knowledge of basketball fundamentals to more parts of the country. I'm hoping that other state basketball associations in India follow this programme's lead to host their own.

Bucan, a Serbian, has been the head coach of the Young Cagers for the past two years. He has had 14 years of experience with coaching positions in national and professional squads in Serbia and Yugoslavia.

Hoopistani on Facebook

Hoopistani is now on Facebook Join in to catch updates on NBA and basketball stories, only in the true Hoopistani flavour!

I'll be regularly updating followers of the page with basketball stories and events in India, as well as holding discussions about NBA and other related topics from around the world.

P.S.: Thanks for the logo, Tulika...

David West and Mahatma Gandhi's grandson to bring Hip-Hop to India

The title of this post may sound a little odd, but believe me, the rest of it won't get any less wierder.


The Music4Peace Tour will be bringing a "Hip-Hop Summit" to India in Novemeber. The big names associated with this initiative are New Orleans Hornets star David West, Dr. Arun Gandhi (grandson of THE Gandhi), and Russell Simmons, co-founder of the pioneering hip-hop label Def Jam.

Never, NEVER in my life had I thought that I would use the words David West, Russell Simmons, and Gandhi in the same sentence.

India to have "Hip-Hop" Summit in November:

“Music4Peace Tour” will organize a “Hip-Hop Summit” in India in November, according to reports.
The “Music for Peace Tour Initiative” is a coalition of organizations and non-profits who have banded together to help bring “peace and harmony” to world. It is an attempt to bring social change “by uniting people through the universal language of music”, it is claimed.


David West, American professional basketball player; Dr. Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson; Russell Simmons, media and fashion mogul; Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr, civil rights leader; Craig Nobles, SMI/SwaggMedia CEO; Baroness Kimberly Moore, entrepreneur and Goodwill Ambassador; LEBO, creative artist; are reportedly associated with it.

November does happen to be the beginning of the 2010-11 NBA season, so I'm unsure how David West plans to fit 'Gandhigiri' and rap music in India around his schedule.

Anyways, I'm always an advocate for using music for social change, and involving NBA stars and a Gandhi will certainly not hurt the cause. Music4Peace has been involved with the Gandhis extensively in the form of The Gandhi Tour, "a global music festival created with the intent to arise social change..."


Meanwhile Dr. Arun Gandhi can take a page out of a Def Jam classic Run-DMC tune and teach Simmons and West how to 'Salt March This Way'.

IOB and SEC Railway lift Ramu Memorial trophies

Another edition of the Ramu Memorial Basketball Tournament (RMBT) concluded on Sunday night, with Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and South East Central (SEC) Railway lifting the Men's and Women's trophies respectively.


Held at the Indian Gymkhana in Mumbai, the RMBT is an annual, prestigious All-India basketball tournament, now in it's 26th edition. The tournament has historically featured the best team's in India competing for the coveted trophy.

From the tournament's press release:

Indian Overseas Bank, improving in every match since their first league match loss to Indian Army, gained sweet revenge right at the end, when they outplayed the Indian Army team 71-54 in the men’s final to lift the glittering 26th UPL Ramu Memorial Trophy, sponsored by United Phorphorous Ltd. and earn a purse of Rs 1 lakh at the Indian Gymkhana, here, on Sunday.
Earlier, in the women’s final, South East Central Railway ended the four-year domination of Southern Railway, handing them a 67-57 defeat to lay their hands on the Kapila Khandvala Shield, along with a purse of Rs 50,000.

Indian Army were done in by the ‘Triple Towers’ of Indian Army, S Robinson, Vineeth Mathew and Mihir Pander... Robinson was easily the standout among both teams... He ended up with the day’s high of 24 points, while Mathew got 18 and Pandey 13. In fact, such was the dominance of IOB that they had scored 12 points before Army opened their account. With Sambhaji Kadam a pale shadow of himself and Nixon failing to find his scoring touch, Army were always playing catch up.
The women’s final saw SECR score over Southern thanks to their entire team pulling their weight. On the other hand, Southern’s reliance on Geethu Anna Jose to deliver the goods proved their undoing with the other players failing to rise to the occasion.

S. Robinson was named player of the tournament. By the way, the 'S' stands for 'Sozhasingarayer' - no wonder the media chooses to stick to the initial! This has been sweet redemption for the basketball sensation, who spent three years in basketball exile after being banned from representing his state Tamil Nadu and the national team.

Pushpa of SEC-Railway, for her consistent play throughout the competition, won the Women's player of the tournament.


Earlier, the Men's semi-finals as well as the slam dunk and three point competitions took place on Saturday evening at the Gymkhana. In the semis, IOB, led by Robinson's 29 points, defeated the rather lukewarm challenge of ONGC 74-57. Indian Army defeated last year's winners Western Railway 71-57.

Nixon from the Indian Army won the 12-man field of the three point shootout. TJ Sahi of Punjab faced a tough competition from last year's finalist Vishesh Bhriguvanshi in the slam dunk competition - TJ eventually won, dunking over two motor bikes and a carrom board in the final round (!), after which he did his signature reverse slam.

A carrom board... ha!

Anyways, this was all in all an exciting tournament, garnering a lot of attention for Indian basketball teams and stars. Granted, for the sport to really capture the imaginations of the audiences, we need to have a consistent league system instead of irregular prized/sponsored competitions. The signs are good though - with the NBA's involvement with BFI as well as their interest in the promoting the game to an Indian audience, I have no doubt that basketball, the country's second fastest growing sport, has nowhere to go but up...

Happy Holi, everybody.

Defending champs dominate Ramu Memorial group stage

The group stages of this year's Ramu Memorial Basketball Tournament (RMBT) concluded last night, with defending champs Western Railways dominating the Men's competition. SEC-Railway go into the final undefeated in the Women's field.

Held at the Indian Gymkhana in Mumbai, the RMBT is an annual, prestigious All-India basketball tournament, now in it's 26th edition. The tournament has historically featured the best team's in India competing for the coveted trophy.

In the men's competition, the teams were divided into two groups:

Group A: Western Railway, ONGC, Chennai Customs, Vijaya Bank
Group B: Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Army, Punjab, RCF-Kapurtala

Western Railway, led by V-Town prodigy and captain of the Young Cagers Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, have been on fire so far, winning all three of their group games. Vishesh has been the main perpetrator, highlighted by his 42 point scoring outburst in the close 85-80 victory over Vijaya Bank in their second game. They also beat Chennai Customs and ONGC to finish as group leaders.


ONGC also qualified from Group A, beating Vijaya Bank and Chennai Customs in their two blowout victories. Mohit Bhandari and Trideep Rai have been consistent performers in their matches.

Indian Army and the giant-killers Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) qualified from Group B for the semi-finals. Three teams in the group - IOB, Indian Army, and Punjab - finished with two victories each, leaving the qualifiers to be decided by point difference.

The big surprise were IOB, led by the recent resurgence of veteran player S. Robinson. After going 1-1 in their first two games, IOB needed a big win against a favoured Punjab side to qualify. Punjab have their own big time performers in Jagdeep Singh and TJ Sahi, but IOB rallied to win their game Thursday night 95-64, led by Robinson's 31. They finished top of the group.

Indian Army lost their first game to Punjab, but recovered well with balanced teamplay and won their next two games against IOB and RCF-Kapurtala, finishing second place in the group.

The Semi-Finals for men will both take place on Saturday the 27th.
5:00 PM: Western Railway vs. Indian Army
7:00 PM: IOB vs. ONGC

Saturday evening will also feature two of the most exciting features of the tournament, the Slam Dunk Competition and the Three Point Shootout. According to Vinod Muthukumar, one of the organizers of the event, the confirmed names for the Slam Dunk Competition so far are TJ Sahi, Jagdeep Singh, Arjun Singh, and Abhilek Paul.

There is only one group for the Women with these four teams: Southern Railway, SEC Railway, Karnataka, and Aamchi Mumbai.

Southern Railway, featuring India's basketball starlet Geethu Anna Jose and Anitha P, started off badly with close loss to SEC Railway. They went on to win their next two games against Karnataka and local favouties Aamchi Mumbai to enter the finals.

They will be joined by SEC Railway, who have won all their games, led mostly by the combined efforts of M. Pushpa and Anju Kakra.

Both the Men's and Women's Finals will be played on Sunday, February 28th. SEC Railway will play Southern Railway in the Women's Finals at 5:30 AM. The winners of the two Men's semi-finals will play the final at 7:30 the same evening.

The tournament is being played on international standard Teraflex courts and held under floodlights in a specially erected stadium. In an interesting new endeavour for Indian tournaments, a statistics programme acquired from FIBA website is being used to track individual and team statistics such points scored, shooting percentage, 3 point percentage, rebounds, assists, steals, etc. The information is regularly uploaded to the tournament's official website: www.ramumemorial.com.

As in the past, entry is free for spectators and this is being done especially to promote basketball among students and youth.

"The crowd is building day by day," said Muthukumar, "Now that the competition is getting stiffer, the audience is getting more eager. The semi final line up looks interesting."

NBA on Ten Sports/Zee Sports

This isn't exactly breaking news, but if you have been following NBA broadcasting in India closely, a show called 'Real NBA' began a few months ago for NBA/basketball fans in India a couple of months ago.



From Indiantelevision.com:

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has entered into a deal with the Ten-Zee combine for a show called Real NBA. This is the first time that Ten Sports has entered into a deal with the NBA.
The 26-episode highlights, brought to fans across India in partnership with HP, is being aired till June every Monday on Ten Sports at 9 pm and on Zee Sports on Tuesday at 8:30 pm.
In addition to India, the programme is also being aired in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan and Afghanistan.

As mentioned above, Real NBA is a highlight-driven show, but also broadcasts some off-the-court news, such as Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor hanging out with Kobe. According to NBA.com/India, Real NBA "provides fans in India unique angles on the biggest stories in the NBA and exclusive access to the league’s players, coaches, executives, broadcasters and journalists."

The more the merrier - In addition to Fastbreak, NBA Action, and Live games on ESPN/STAR, it's good to see that the NBA is expanding to other networks in India like Ten-Zee to show more basketball highlights.

P.S.: There was no way I was going to write something today and not mention the cricket match last night.

200*.

I'm gonna use Larry Bird's quote about Michael Jordan and apply it to the greatest Indian alive: "That was God disguised as Sachin Tendulkar."