The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on home advantage (HA) comparing games with the presence of spectators (pre-pandemic) and during ghost games in absence of spectators (post-pandemic). A secondary twofold objective was to analyse the influence of team ability on HA by (i) comparing HA for pre- and post- pandemic and (ii) comparing different team ability levels. Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to identify HA and home wins percentage (HW%) differences between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic games. Additionally, the Kruskal-Wallis test was run to identify HA and HW% differences between team ability levels (High to Low). Teams had higher HA and HW% during pre-pandemic than post-pandemic. In turn, low level teams present higher HA compared to the other team ability levels. Thus, low level teams are more benefited from playing at their home-court, resulting in a higher chance of winning comparing with playing away. However, for HW% low level teams showed lower HW% than medium and high team ability levels, showing that when a team is considerably weaker than the opponent, then this difference in ability will outweigh HA and the stronger team is likely to win both at home and away.

The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of different factors on the external peak demands (PD) encountered by elite, junior, male basketball players in games, including the (1) total playing time during games and (2) playing time accumulated directly prior to each PD episode. Workload variables included the PD for total distance, distance covered in different intensity zones, accelerations >2 m·s-2 (ACC), decelerations <-2 m·s-2 (DEC), and PlayerLoad. PD were calculated across different sample durations for each variable. Linear mixed models were used to identify differences in PD between groups based on playing times. PD for total distance (5-min window), high-speed running (>18 km·h-1) distance (2-min window), and ACC (30-s, 45-s, 1-min, 2-min, and 5-min windows) were significantly ( p < .05) higher for players who completed lower total playing times (16.6 ± 2.4 min) than players who completed higher total playing times (25.0 ± 3.4 min). The PD for total distance (30-s, 45-s, 1-min, and 2-min windows), high-speed running distance (30-s and 5-min windows), and PlayerLoad (1-min and 2-min windows) were significantly ( p < .05) higher for players who accumulated lower playing times before each PD episode than players who accumulated higher playing times before each PD episode. Players who undertake less playing time overall and prior to each PD episode can reach higher peak external loads aggregated across varied time windows. These findings can inform tactical coaching decisions during games for high external loads to be accomplished during important passages of play.