India fizzled out after a bright start to lose 62-97 to Korea in the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup Division-A basketball tournament at the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday.
India raised expectations of creating a spectacular upset, going up 6-0 and 10-2 in the opening minutes. Jeena Scaria and Anjana Geetha ran the floor and found their range, while the Koreans struggled to find offensive rhythm. At the end of the first quarter, India held a 22-20 lead.
A disastrous second quarter, however, put India out of contention. With tough physical play and double-team defence, Korea snuffed out all scoring opportunities. The home team could score only six points, and lost all momentum. Korea raced to a 44-28 advantage at half-time, and never looked back.
Overall, India put up a far improved show after the 27-103 hammering received at the hands of Japan on Tuesday, but it was not enough to prevent a second straight defeat. Jeena finished as the highest scorer for India, recording 14 points.
India will have to defeat Chinese Taipei in its last group match on Thursday in order to avoid the relegation playoff encounter.
Earlier, Japan, China and Australia all registered their second successive victories of the tournament.
The results: Group A: Japan 78 (Maki Takada 19, Ramu Tokashiki 19, Yuki Miyazawa 15) bt Chinese Taipei 49 (Ling Chuan Huang 12); Korea 97 (An Jin 21, Hyeyoon Bae 14, Leeseul Kang 13, Seul Ku 12, Minjeong Kim 11, Hyejin Park 11, Jihyun Park 10) bt India 62 (Jeena Scaria 14, Anjana Geetha 9).
Group B: China 104 (Mingling Chen 21, Guo Zixuan 19, Y. Li 11, Li Yuan 10, Jiacen Liu 10, Xu Han 10) bt Philippines 57 (Afril Bernandino 10); Australia 82 (Ezi Magbegor 14, Darcee Garbin 13, Abby Bishop 10) bt New Zealand 44 (Antonia Edmondson 12, Micaela Cocks 10) .
