Feature

Accounting & Information Systems: New Basketball Champ of DU

Mahmud-Ur-Rashid

Basketball is not quite popular in Bangladesh compared to football and cricket. American missionaries introduced this game in the sub continent. In Bangladesh, one of the oldest basketball competitions is the “Inter Department Basketball Tournament” organized by University of Dhaka. This tournament started few years after the inception of the university, which began its journey in 1921.

Origin of the game
In early December 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian physical education student and instructor at YMCA Training School (today, Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track.

In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, so balls scored into the basket had to be poked out with a long dowel each time. A soccer ball was used to shoot goals. Whenever a person got it in the basket, they would give their team a point. Teams getting the most points would win the game.

The first official basketball game was played in the YMCA gymnasium on January 20, 1892 with nine players on a court just half the size of a present-day National Basketball Association (NBA) court. "Basketball", the name suggested by one of Naismith's students, was popular from the beginning.

The Tournament
Every year in April-May, Basketball Committee of the university organizes the tournament. On 23rd April, 2007, Pro Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. A F M Yusuf Haider inaugurated the tournament.

Due to the emergency situation, an army camp was placed in the indoor gymnasium of the university, where in normal time the tournament is held regularly. So the venue shifted from indoor facility of the gymnasium to the outdoor court of Zahrul Haq Hall, where matches took place under open sky.

This year 24 departments and institutes enlisted their names for the tournament. They were divided into eight groups each consists of 3 departments. Each team played 2 matches in the group stage. The group champions were moved to quarter final stage.

Quarter finalists were Dept. of Economics, Dept. of Applied Physics, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems, Institute of Business Administration, Dept. of English, Dept. of International Relations, Dept. of Pharmacy & Dept. of Marketing.

In the 1st Semi Final Accounting defeated Applied Physics, on the second semi final, Economics won by 9 points over English. In the 3rd place-deciding match Applied Physics defeated English.

On 9th June, in the exciting Grand Finale, Accounting & Information Systems defeated defending champion Economics and became the champion of 2007, Score was 65-60. DU Vice Chancellor, Provost of Zahrul Haq Hall, Members of the organizing committee were present in the prize giving ceremony. Captain of Accounting, Biplob Barua was judged as the “Most Valuable Player of the Tournament” for his outstanding performance throughout the tournament. He was also adjudicated as the “Best Scorer of the Tournament” as he scored 121 points in the tournament.

(mahmud2saber@yahoo.com)