BENGALURU: The Basketball Federation of India has announced the dates for the Indian School and College Basketball Leagues (ISBL and ICBL).
ISBL will be held between 25th December and 15th March 2018 and ICBL will be held from 18th April to 31st July 2018 in each participating states.
The winners of the boys and girls categories in school leagues and men and women categories in college leagues from each state will qualify for the Indian School & College Basketball Leagues – National Championship.
Indian School and College Basketball League will create a structured, self-sustaining system which will serve as the platform to increase organized basketball participation at grassroots level and subsequently serve as the talent development system for the Indian national teams, the BFI asserts.
The leagues are organized in such a way that it extends to a period of around 6-8 weeks where each team plays only one match every week. Also, the school leagues have certain regulations which helps each and every player to get a good amount of playing time to showcase their talent.
Previous editions of the school and college league have helped provide BFI a wider talent pool out of which many of the top performers went on to represent India in different age groups.
Rs 25,000 will be awarded to the state level champions in both ISBL and ICBL, whereas the first and second runners-up will get Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000 each, respectively. The details, including dates and locations, for the Indian School & College Basketball Leagues – National Championship will be released soon.
League Format:
The number of teams participating in each League will be 16, except in case of Union territories where 8 teams in each group/section must participate.
Teams will be split into groups of 8, each team will play all the other teams in the group for a total of each team playing 7 matches. The league will be played on a league cum knock-out format on both the state and national levels, it will be played over a minimum of 6 week period, with each team playing at least once per weak. The age limit for participation in ICBL will be under 25 years, whereas for ISBL it is under 19 years.
Rankings will be done as per FIBA rules; win = 2 points, loss = 1 point, forfeit = 0 points. If any of the teams are tied even at the end, then classification is done using Goal Average(Point For / Points Against) for all games played.
