National Men’s Basketball Championship commences at GCU Lahore

National Men’s Basketball Championship commences at GCU Lahore

Pakistan Army, Pakistan WAPDA, POF and Lahore won their league matches on the first day of the five-day National Men’s Basketball Championship that commenced here at the Govt College University Lahore on Monday.

The event is being organized by Punjab Basketball Association in Lahore. The first match of the opening day saw Pakistan Army outclassing Faisalabad by a huge margin of 108-56. At the half time, Army were enjoying the 56-23 lead but Army maintained their supremacy in the second half to win the encounter 108-56. For Army, the top scorers were Shoaib Aslam (18), Farhad Ahmed (17) and Ammar Tughlab (16). For Faisalabad Muhammad Usman scored 15 and M Ahsan 10.

In the second match of the day, Pakistan WAPDA outsmarted Islamabad by 80-33. WAPDA had 54-20 lead at half time, which was stretched to 80-33 in the second half. For Wapda, Zain ul Hasan scored 22 and Kaleemullah 12 points while for Islamabad, Zarghamullah (10) and Mughees Azam (8) played well.

In the third match, POF defeated POF by 50-39 points. For POF, Azharullah and Muhammad Farooq scored 18 and 12 points respectively. For PAF, the top scorers were Ahmed Jan (12) and Akhtar Jan (17).

The fourth match of the event was won by Lahore, who outsmarted Navy by 86-55. For Lahore side, Taimoor Mehdi scored 16 and Safi Khan scored 14 points. For Navy, the top scorers were Badr Manan (10) and Ziaur Rehman (23). The matches were supervised by Yaqoob Qadri, Gul Jamal and Syed Adnan Ali.

Top eight teams are participating in this national tournament, which are divided into two pools. Pool A includes defending champions Pakistan Army, Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), Pakistan Air Force and Faisalabad while Pool B consists of Pakistan WAPDA, Lahore, Navy and Islamabad.

The semifinals of the championship will be played on November 23, while the final of the championship will be played on November 24. Tomorrow (Tuesday), four more matches will be played. Army will take on PAF at 11:00 am, Wapda will vie against Navy, POF will compete against Faisalabad and Lahore will lock horns against Islamabad.

The main officials of Pakistan Basketball Federation, Punjab Basketball Association, majority of students of GC University, Muhammad Azam Dar, Abdul Majeed, Director PSB Coaching Centre Lahore also witnessed and enjoyed the matches.