Five-on-five hoop sport runs on dribbles and shots
Basketball sends two teams of five onto a rectangular court to put a ball through the opponent's elevated hoop. Players advance by dribbling or passing, and positions stretch from tall centers to quick guards. James Naismith dreamed it up in 1891 to keep a gym class busy on a rainy day.
Basketball pits two teams of five, not counting substitutes, against each other on a rectangular court, each trying to shoot the ball through a hoop fixed to a backboard at either end. The ball moves by dribbling, bouncing it while walking or running, or by passing, and scorers use layups, jump shots, and dunks while defenders steal, intercept, and block. Teams usually field a center, typically the tallest, a strong power forward, an agile small forward, and two guards who handle the ball.
In December 1891 James Naismith, a Canadian-American instructor at the YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, now Springfield College, wanted a vigorous indoor game for his class on a rainy day. He wrote basic rules and nailed a peach basket to an elevated track; at first its bottom was left in, so someone had to fetch the ball after every score. Peach baskets lasted until 1906, when metal hoops with backboards replaced them. The first balls were laced soccer balls, whose laces could make bounces go astray.
Early in 1892 Frank Mahan, who had played in the first game, suggested calling it Naismith ball, which Naismith laughed off. Five-a-side became standard by 1897 to 1898, partly because soccer teams driven indoors by icy weather could split neatly in half. Senda Berenson at nearby Smith College soon adapted the rules for her students, and by 1895 the game was established at several women's high schools. A 1591 book printed in Frankfurt had already described a similar ball game among coastal North Americans.
YMCA members carried the game across the United States and Canada, though within a decade the YMCA itself discouraged it as too rough. C. O. Beamis fielded the first college team at Geneva College near Pittsburgh a year after the Springfield game, and Naismith spent six years as the University of Kansas coach. The first national men's college tournament, now the NAIA tournament, began in 1937. Today the NBA is the world's most important professional league, while the WNBA leads women's play in North America.
Source: Basketball
