Nepal crashed to a humiliating 106-39 defeat at the hands of India in the Saba U-16 Boys’ Basketball Championship to crash out from the race of U-16 Asian Cup Basketball Championship.

It was second consecutive defeat for the hosts who had gone down to Bangladesh 68-57 in their second game of the round robin league tournament. India, who play a lowly Bhutan in their last league game, have all but guaranteed a place in this year’s regional age group tournament to be held in Malaysia.

India have won all of their first three tournaments beating Maldives, Bangladesh and Nepal and even an unlikely slimmest margin of defeat against Bhutan on Saturday will be enough for them to book tickets to Malaysia. Bangladesh, who defeated Maldives 107-52 in their last game, are at least guaranteed a second spot having lost the only game against India.

Nepal were undone by 6 feet seven inches tall Indian centre Princepal Singh who alone scored 45 points and accounted for almost 100 percent of their defensive rebounds. India went ahead in the first quarter 26-12 and quickly stretched their lead to 31 points adding another 24 in the second and confining Nepal to seven points.

India virtually sealed the game in the third quarter scoring a whopping 32 points in the third when Nepal added just 12. The final quarter was just about completing the formality as the South Asian giants scored 24 and restricted Nepal to eight. Jerome Prince also scored 13 points for India.

Abhishek Singh was the leading scorer for Nepal sinking in 20 points, while Gyaljen Sherpa had three pointers in his 11 points. Nepal coach Rabindra Maharjan said he wanted to restrict India below triple figures.

“They have tall and physically built players and all we needed to do was play some swift passes and take care of the rebound but that didn’t happen,” said Maharjan.