The inaugural basketball match in BOSM ’19 started off with a bang— BITS Pilani versus Lovely Professional University (LPU). The exhibition match at the start of BOSM is traditionally played between BITS and the BITS alumni team. This time, the alums could not arrive in time, so LPU agreed to play the friendly. The intention of the match is for the team to have a good time, while also breaking in the teams’ new recruits.

The match was much shorter than a full-length match— two halves of ten minutes each. The first half started off at 9:00 pm and proceeded much in favour of the home team. The ex-captain, Pranav Singh Rathore, scored many points for BITS. Slow reactions from LPU helped the BITS team heap points on the board early in the game. The second half started off at 9:15 pm, with the visiting team displaying strong blocks and impressive shot attempts. The crowd cheered when Sartaj, from LPU, scored a swift and skilful two-pointer. Ishan Rai of the home team scored an impressive lay-up, putting two more points on the board. As the match was intended to test the freshers, they were given field time in the second half. Atishay Jain scored particularly well on his debut, greatly boosting BITS’ score.

The match continued, with two pauses for 3-minute refreshment breaks. The centre defence from LPU displayed impressive skill by almost blocking a BITS shot, using his height to great advantage. As this was the inaugural match, scores were not maintained formally until the end. Nevertheless, the match ended neck-to-neck with the home team leading by a narrow margin.

The BOSM English Press spoke to BITS’ captain, Vinay Pai, about his thoughts on the match. He was pleased with his team’s performance, especially the freshers, as they did not crack under pressure. He remarked that the defence was pretty light on both sides, though he felt that LPU had blocked many shots well. All in all, it was a very good game with impressive play from both sides.