Kerala pins Women’s National Basketball Association hopes on female hoopsters

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the country rejoices over the entry of Satnam Singh into the NBA, Kerala has pinned its hopes on women players when it comes to representation in international leagues, including WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association).

In spite of men’s teams playing the most number of school and college tournaments in the country, male players tend to drop out after the college level.

Arjuna Award winner Geethu Ann Joseph was earlier called for tryout with WNBA’s Chicago Sky and Los Angeles Sparks. However, her junior Poojamol, who has been evaluated as the finest Indian player, is a formidable contender in WNBA.

“The NBA's senior director, basketball operations (International) Troy Justice, was very impressed by K.S. Poojamol and P.S. Jeena and we hope to see them at the international level. Kerala has 4-5 players in Indian Women’s team. The collaboration with NBA and corporate-funded academies has helped in improving the skills. NBA officials have visited Kochi during last two years to hone new talents and train our coaches,” Kerala Basketball Association vice-president Chacko said.

The Mount Carmel School, Thrissur, and Silver Hills, Kozhikode, hosts some of the prestigious women’s tournaments in the state.

Meanwhile, in spite of getting to play 57 inter-school tournaments and 20 inter-college tournaments, the senior men from Kerala do not often make it to the Indian team due to high attrition rate at junior levels. Earlier, around 10 to 12 national tournament were being played across the state. Now just one or two happen around Kottayam where the game was first introduced in India by Christian missionaries.

“The expense of national-level tournaments is too high due to travel allowance and other charges to host teams. Now, several tournaments happen in Tamil Nadu. Most of our men play for railways and the lack of job opportunities push them to even teams like ONGC and IOB,” a senior coach associated with Kerala Sports Council said.

Most tournaments even at school-college levels are centred around Ernakulam, Thiruvanathapuram and pockets of Kottayam.