The Indian U-16 Men’s Basketball Team lost 57-109 to Japan at the second day of the preliminary round of the FIBA U16 Asian Championship going on in Foshan, China.

India started the game on a strong note with taking the lead early in the first quarter and ended the quarter with a tied score of 17 each but the fast paced Japanese team came back even stronger in the second quarter with the help of their impressive full court defence outscoring India 36-12. Japan had 10 consecutive points as a result of turnovers from the Indian side.

Japan kept on building on their lead in the following quarters and took the victory with an emphatic lead of 52 points. Indian Centre Princepal Singh continued his outstanding form by scoring 26 points and grabbing 13 rebounds whereas Captain Harshvardhan Tomar also recorded a double-double scoring 11 points and collecting 10 rebounds. Keisei Tominaga of Japan led all the scorers with 27 points.

Japan (Keisei Tominaga 27 pts, Chikara Tanaka 22 pts) bt India (Princepal  26 pts, Rajveer 10 pts, Harshvardhan 11 pts) 57-109 (17-17, 36-12, 34-14, 22-14).

The 16 teams qualified to compete are hosts China, reigning champions Korea, Australia, Bahrain, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines and Saudi Arabia.

Thirteen (13) teams will be divided into three (3) groups (A, B, C) of three (3) teams each and one (1) group (D) of four (4).

The best placed Team in each group will qualify directly to the Knock-out stage starting with the Quarter-Finals.