Ann Mary Zachariah to play NCAA Division 1 college basketball

The Kerala native becomes the fourth player overall from NBA Academy India to earn a Division I basketball scholarship, joining Sanjana Ramesh at Northern Arizona and Harsimran Kaur at San Diego on the women's side and Amaan Sandhu at Monmouth Hawks on the men's side. Ann Mary was a part of the Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA program, a comprehensive youth development initiative that aims to develop basketball at the grassroots level and commitment towards the holistic growth of children through active participation in sports. In 2015, Ann Mary was identified as a top prospect, a critical juncture in her sporting career. Since its inception, Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA Program has reached more than 11 million youngsters from 13,000 schools across 34 cities and trained nearly 15,000 physical education instructors nationwide. Thereafter, she participated in three NBA-led basketball development programs before playing stateside. She has been playing basketball in the United States since the start of 2020 when she committed to Life Prep Academy in Wichita, Kansas. After that, she joined Howard Junior College in Big Spring, Texas. While at Howard Junior, Ann Mary averaged 15.4 points per game in her first collegiate season while shooting 40.2 per cent and pulling down 10.4 rebounds per contest. She also recorded nine games with 20+ points, including a career-high 37 on 14-for-22 shooting. With her dominating performances on the court, she was named the WJCAC Women's Basketball Freshman of the Year and to the All-Conference Team. In 2018, Ann Mary participated in Basketball Without Borders Asia and participated in multiple NBA Academy Women's Program camps in India from 2017-2019. In one of these camps, she won the Coaches Award. She also represented India in two junior FIBA tournaments - U16 Women's Asian Championship 2017 and U18 Women's Asian Championship 2018 and was a participant in the NCAA's Next Generation program at the Women's Final Four in Tampa. Zachariah joins the Colorado State University at the centre position, standing at 6'3". She will play D-1 NCAA basketball in the Mountain West Conference under head coach Ryun Williams. The NBA Academy Women's Program is a series of basketball development camps for top female athletes from outside the U.S. at the league's academies. The NBA also has an NBA Academy India, an elite basketball training centre for the top prospects from across India and the first of its kind in the country. It is one of four NBA Academies around the world: NBA Academy Africa (Senegal), NBA Academy Latin America (Mexico), NBA Academy India (India), and NBA Global Academy (Australia). NBA Academy India is supported by official partner ACG, an elite basketball training centre for the top prospects from throughout India and the first of its kind in the country. (ANI)