Kolkata: The Kerala State Women’s Basket team in association with Team Rebound are set to organise the Kerala Hoopathon during the 125th birthday of World Basketball.
The Kerala Hoopathon was (game of Basketball) introduced to 12500 kids of 10-12 years of age by making them shoot 125000 points simultaneously across all districts of Kerala in 125 schools.
It received an overwhelming response and the target was surpassed with 159620 points scored. Now, Team Rebound has decided to extend it’s support for the Hoopathon campaign to promote the sport across the state of Kerala with yet another new event.
Recently, the Kerala State Women’s Basketball team had for the 1st time in 35 years, won the Womens National Basketball championship in 2016-17. In fact, players such as Jeena Scaria, Grima Merlin and Anjana P.S were members of the winning Indian women’s team at the recently concluded Level 2 Competition of the FIBA Asian Championships at Bangalore.
All this success has attracted the attention of Team Rebound, who wants to help the women basketballers with more exposure and competition at the international level. “It is our endeavour to organise this International Hoopathon Series as the beginning of the Roadmap for Team India to improve its standing at the Asian level” said Mohammed Iqbal, President of Team Rebound.
Moreover, all the events are being organised by Team Rebound with the knowledge of the Kerala Basketball Association and approval of the Basketball Federation of India. This will also be the first time where Kerala will be hosting an International Women’s Basketball event. The event is expected to draw full capacity crowds at all venues across the state for such a big occasion.
Ringwood Hawks club, Melbourne which is a part of the Big V Basketball League in Australia will play 5 matches against Kerala All Star Women team across five cities in Kerala.
“Such international matches will only help the womens basketball to grow further in Kerala and KBA is extremely happy to be joining hands with Team Rebound,” said P.J Sunny, president of the Kerala Basketball Association.