Purpose:To determine the discriminators as variables to select the under-16 national-team players and to examine the influence of biological age on physical/technical parameters among young basketball players.Methods:Thirty-four under-15 male basketball players performed several anthropometrical (height, wingspan, body mass, and fingers length) and physical (jumping, sprinting, throwing, flexibility, change-of-direction speed, and aerobic fitness) tests during the under-15 male national-team training camp. Maturity offset, lower-limb asymmetry index, and power outputs for jumping and sprinting were also computed. In addition, game performance was taken into consideration using game-related statistics (assists, turnovers, steals, rebounds, blocks, and points) of 5 games of during the previous regional tournament (April 2016). Cluster analysis was used to analyze the between-maturation status (prepubertal, pubertal, and postpubertal) differences in physical parameters.Results:The postpubertals showed a significantly better performance in power outputs (jumping and sprinting), throwing abilities, and blocks, whereas prepubertal performed significantly better in aerobic fitness and assists. Receiver-operating-characteristic curve confirmed maturational status (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.804;P < .05) and training experience (AUC = 0.789;P < .05) as the most important attributes in predicting under-16 national-team selection. Players with more than 5.5 years of training experience and less than 1.4 y to the age at peak height velocity were most likely to be selected.Conclusion:Maturational status seems to be a key variable that increases the probability of selection for the Portuguese under-16 national team.
This study aimed to analyse how youth basketball players explored numerical overloads during shot attempts by measuring their space occupation across specific court areas. Four process-tracing variables measured how the number of attackers (NA), number of defenders (ND), interpersonal distance between attacker and the closest defender (ID) and distance between attacker and the basket (DBkt) impacted on the performance outcome (converted shot; missed shot; ball possession lost). Ten competitive games involving 13 U14 teams were video recorded and players' displacements were digitised. The associations between performance outcomes and the process-tracing measures were assessed using standardised mean differences and a cross-correlation function. A multinomial logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratio (OR) for each of the three possible outcomes. Results revealed that when shot attempts occurred at larger ID and at smaller DBkt, the possibilities to obtain a converted shot increased. The numerical overload of defenders near the scoring target was predominantly associated with offensive success. Also, the possibility of attackers to lead the spatial relation of movements with the defenders, near the scoring target, appeared as a prominent strategy to succeed. In sum, basketball teams that exhibit potential to adapt their collective behaviours to local changes in the environment might be closer to achieving successful outcomes.
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