basketball player essay

Basketball Essay for Students and Children

500+ essay on basketball.

The game of basketball has truly become global in the last few years. The game is currently popular in the United States. Also, it is described by many as an American game because of the fun and competitive element in it. Also, this is one of the games which is played indoors and still caters to billions of fans around the world. This game was Dr. James Naismith from Canada. Initially, he invented the game by using a rectangular pitch which was 6 feet wide and 4 feet high. Additionally, the court includes a free throw line which is 12 feet long. In basketball essay, students will get to know about the different components that make the game of basketball special.

It is a team game that has gained immense popularity. Also, the game is played with the help of a ball and the ball is shot into the basket that is positioned horizontally. So, the objective in the game is to shoot the ball and score the maximum points. This game is played by 2 teams that constitute a total of 5 players each. Also, the game is played on a marked rectangular floor that has a basket on both the ends. 

Originally, basketball was played using a soccer ball. Also, it was James Naismith that used a peach basket which ha ad a nonhollow bottom. So, this basket was nailed at a height of 10 ft. above the ground and on an elevated track. If you consider the manual removal of the ball from the basket a drawback then the bottom was removed to and it took the shape of modern-day baskets. Also, dribbling was not part of the game initially. Eventually, it evolved till 1950 by which the balls got better shape due to manufacturing. 

Additionally, the orange ball was evolved from the brown ball. The brown ball was used in the beginning as it was thought that the ball is more visible. By 1996, the peach baskets used were replaced by metal hoops on the backboard. 

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Basketball Game 

At the start of the game, a referee tosses the ball at the center of the court between two players. One player from either team try to get their hands on the ball and the ball is passed on to the teammates. For scoring a point, a team needs to shoot the ball through the basket. If a shot is scored from a distance that is closer to the basket than the 3 point line than it fetches 2 points. Also, if the ball is shot from the distance behind 3 point line, it fetches 3 points. So, the team that has a maximum number of points is declared the winner. 

In case of a draw, there may be additional time allotted to both the teams. In the game, a player is cannot move if he is holding the ball. The player needs to dribble, otherwise, it is considered as a foul. Likewise, when there is a physical contact that affects the other team then it counted as a physical foul. 

Basketball is game played with a maintained and carefully marked court. It is a team sport that is commonly found in many different areas. 

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142 Basketball Topics & Essay Examples

If you need to write a research paper about basketball, it’s useful to read through some essay examples while looking for content ideas. Our team has compiled this selection of the best basketball research topics.

👟Top 10 Basketball Topics to Write about

🏆 best topics about basketball, 🤾 good basketball research topics, 🏀 interesting basketball titles for essays, 🎓 simple & easy basketball essay topics, ❓ research questions for basketball essays.

• Physiology of basketball players.
• Difference in football and basketball mechanics.
• Michael Jordan: basketball legend.
• Professional basketball and health risks.
• Mathematics of the basketball court.
• Comparing NBA basketball teams.
• Is basketball a dangerous sport?
• Bullying in college basketball teams.
• Efficacy of basketball slogans.
• Most famous basketball games of all time.
• The Cost of Running a NBA Basketball Team The estimated value is derived from a breakdown of various aspects such as; Sport which contribute 52% of the total worth Stadium which contribute 16% of the total worth Market which contribute 24% of the […]
• Michael Jordan: The Story of a Basketball Player Michael was born into a large family he is the fourth of the five children in the family, and his parents are James and Deloris Jordan.
• LeBron James’s: Biography of a Famous Basketball Player However, while people hear his name for a number of reasons, LeBron James became famous for his expertise in the game of basketball.
• National Basketball Association SWOT Analysis NBA headquarters are located in the USA, where the largest fan base and players reside. In the USA, the association has a huge fan base.
• Perfect Diet for a Women’s College Basketball Player Due to their complexity, proteins take a while in the body and that means that a lot of energy will be kept in the body only to be released at intervals when the body needs […]
• An Overview of the Game of Basketball The game is played by throwing a puffed-up ball over the heads of the players; the ball goes down through one of the two baskets dangling at each end of the court.
• Rhetorical Analysis of Basketball In this aspect, it is worth considering basketball not only from an emotional and ethical point of view but also from a logical one, thus, the logos.
• Jim Carroll’s Drug Addiction in the Movie “The Basketball Diaries” by Leonardo Dicaprio After the bursting of Jim and apprehending of his friends, using drugs red handed by the couch, disintegration starts taking place in the group and most of the boys lose their essence for being thrown […]
• NBA: Competing on Global Delivery With Akamai OS Streaming Thus, the use of Akamai helps the NBA compete within this market because the company’s services are used to guarantee the provision of the high-quality content around the globe of regardless the location of the […]
• National Basketball Association: Porter’s Forces Analysis One way the use of Akamai has given NBA an edge is through the use of its 25,000 servers located across the globe.
• Changes in NBA History Kirchberg makes a comparison of the growth of the league to the growth of athletes by noting that the league has grown “From the first superstar, center George Mikan of the Minneapolis Lakers, to its […]
• 12-Week Basketball Training Plan for Male Players However, on the other hand, the rhythm of the exercises should be less demanding for the athlete to have time to recover and regain energy after the season.
• World Basketball Legend: Stephen Curry In 2008, he was included in the second symbolic team of the best players in the US Student Championship, and in 2009 Curry played in the first team.
• San Antonio Spurs Analysis: The National Basketball Association San Antonio Spurs is one of the major teams in the National Basketball Association in the United States of America representing the city of San Antonio in the league.
• The US Basketball Teams’ Performance Analysis Data set was obtained from the NBA was categorical to the; NBA Team, year of specific games, points scored, and average level of the competence of the team.
• How White Privilege Works in Basketball White players are not obliged to understand or research the history of racism in sports and basketball. Non-white players are unable to be ignorant of race as they often encounter issues that have racism at […]
• Geometry Web Quest for Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, Bowling, Golf, Volleyball and Pool Field for golf is the biggest and made of grass, sand and water and is the biggest and it has no fixed shape. Soccer field is made of grass or synthetic material and is the […]
• Plyometric Training Effects on Jumping Performance in Junior Basketball Players Before the training procedure, the maximum vertical jump height of the groups was recorded, as well as the results of isometric tests on the maximal voluntary force of hip and knee extensors and the rate […]
• The Business Side of NBA and Other Sports The use of sports and the development of mass media have facilitated the growth of professionalism in sports.”This has created some friction where by the money is seen as more important than the recreational aspect”.
• Mark Cuban’s Leadership Style in a Basketball Team Leadership is the process of influencing people through acts of motivation and providing the employees with the course and the organizational goals.
• Sports Passion: Basketball in the Stadium Once the game is on and the ball is being dribbled on the court, spectators are glued to the ball and where it is.
• NBA Live 08 by EA Sports: History and Gameplay The last “generation” game to be released prior to the NBA Live series was NBA Showdown which was released in 1994 NBA Live 95 was the first of the series to be released and appeared […]
• Kobe Bryant: “Beefsteak” in American Basketball History All through high school, he became star player on the courts and merited sufficient honors and triumphs to compensate for his lack of college basketball experience.
• Racial Diversity in the University Basketball Team In this tournament, I noted that the predominant races in most of the teams were African American and Caucasian. Although the lack of racial diversity in the University’s basketball team is apparent, few people seem […]
• National Basketball Association: Team Work From 1884 to 1889, the Spurs team had a rough time as they lost during all the four seasons, but with the help of Red McCombs, the originator, the team got encouraged and started improving.
• National Basketball Association’s Corporate Culture Therefore, it could be argued that emphasis on social issues, innovative approach to marketing, and size advantages are the main strengths of the league in the process of adaptation to the forces of globalization.
• Donald Sterling and National Basketball Association The scenario has attracted the attention of sports administrators and sociologists who have given their respective interpretations of the events that led to Sterling losing the ownership of the professional basketball franchise of the National […]
• NBA’s Corporate Culture Modernization Project The objective of this project is to explore the consequences for the NBA in terms of its social activity and to analyze the ways it will modernize its corporate culture to address the issues correctly.
• UC Riverside Men’s Basketball Team’s Social Media Marketing In order to increase credibility and maintain professionalism, the proposed website, twitter fan page, and Facebook channels will encompass processes and features that flawlessly facilitate a healthy lifetime relationship between social media and the UCR […]
• The NBA 2K Game as the Element of Popular Culture Despite the original aim of producing the series of popular video games NBA 2K is a popularization of basketball among the representatives of the modern situation, the release of the series also focuses on advertising […]
• Sports and Entertainment Event in the USA: NBA Playoffs The NBA Playoffs is one of the favorite sporting events in the US. The viewer rating for the NBA Playoffs shows that this event is one of the biggest sports and entertainment events in the […]
• UCR Women’s Basketball Marketing Strategies Designing jerseys that contain a logo and the name of the basketball and selling them to fans, supporters, and sponsors effectively promote UCR Women’s Basketball.
• 2011 NBA Lockout: Public Relations Failure The NBA strike began on the 1st of July, 2011 and is still in effect until the time when the NBA owners and the National Basketball Players Association will make a deal.
• The Aspects of Basketball in the American Society In the 1980s, the National Basketball Association was organized in order to represent the interests of the professional players and regulate the main principles of the sport.
• The Basketball Game A basketball is a vital component in the game of basketball at the playing field, commonly referred to as a court and the basket. The lighter the basketball, the easier it is to roll the […]
• Comparison and Contrast of Jordan and Bird in the Game of Basketball
• Comparison Between Basketball and Soccer
• Comparison Between High School and College Basketball and Professional Basketball
• Analysis of the Basketball Community in New York City
• Analysis of the Basketball Game and Rules
• Analysis of the Fail to Succeed for Michael Jordan
• Analysis of the Impact of Money on Athletes in Relation to Basketball Players
• Basketball and Amateur Athletic Union
• Basketball Vs. Baseball
• Differences Between Amateur and Professional Basketball
• New York City Basketball Lost a Legendary Figure Last Week
• Middle Schools Should Return Middle School Basketball
• Effects of the Sport Education Model on University Students Game Performance and Content Knowledge in Basketball
• Employee Discipline and Basketball Referees: A Prediction Market Approach
• Greatest College Basketball Coach of All Time
• Basketball for Short People Basket to Be Lowered
• LeBron James Vs. Kevin Durant in NBA basketball
• Joseph Jefferson Jackson Missed Chance in the Basketball Hall of Fame
• Duration-Specific Peak Acceleration Demands During Professional Female Basketball Matches
• Identifying and Describing the Bad Boy in the Game of Basketball
• Market Evidence Against Widespread Point Shaving in College Basketball
• NBA During the 70s the Rise in Popularity of Basketball
• Suppose That the Price of Basketball Tickets at Your
• Clemon Tigers Men’s Basketball Team
• Broken Dreams and Predictable Future in Ex-Basketball Player by John Updike
• Relationship Between Outcome Uncertainties and Match Attendance: New Evidence in the National Basketball Association
• Joe Jackson Should Have a Place in the Basketball Hall of Fame
• Foreign Players and Competitive Balance in Greek Basketball and Handball Championships
• Practice and Feedback Methods to Improve Performance of Basketball Layups
• Factors determining production (FDP) in basketball
• Beckett Brenn High School All American Basketball Player
• Past, Present and Future of Lithuanian Basketball
• Basketball Comparison Clash Vince Carter
• Biography and Life Work of Basketball Player Michael Jordan
• Biography and Life Work of Larry Bird
• Life Work of Michael Jordan, an American Professional Basketball Player
• History of Basketball, a Popular Sport in America
• A Multicriteria Selection System Based on Player Performance
• Analysis of the Pyramid of Success from the Sports Successes of Basketball Coach John Wooden
• Proposal for a New Draft Process in the National Basketball Associations
• Basketball History: From Origins and Geographical Diffusion
• Basketball in Colleges University
• Basketball Shoes Product Positioning
• Basketball Is the Most Important Factor on Offense
• Benefits of Basketball Is the Most Productive Sport for Children
• Coaching High School Boys’ Basketball
• Corruption in College Basketball
• Consumption Benefits and Gambling: Evidence from the NCAA Basketball Betting Market
• Cultural Manifestation Via a Game of Street Basketball
• Developing a Basketball Training Program
• High School and Phenomenon Basketball Player
• Kobe Bryant: The Best Basketball Player of the Last Decade
• Leadership Qualities and Characteristics of Successful Basketball Coaches
• Marketing Plan for Basketball
• Methods and Techniques Used for Endurance Developing for the Basketball Beginner Teams
• Michael Jordan the Greatest of All Time National Basketball
• National Basketball Association and Cedar Park Center
• National Basketball Association and the Woman National Basketball Association
• Playing For Money / NBA Basketball Players and Personal Greed
• Professional Basketball Physical Performance and Genetic Predisposition
• Development and Evolution of Basketball
• Difference Between College and Professional Basketball
• Effect of Additional Police Force on Crime Rate: Evidence from Women’s Japan Basketball League
• History of Modern Basketball
• Media and Its Effects on the Sport of Basketball
• Women’s College Basketball History and Background
• Who Is Your Favorite Basketball Player?
• How Can Basketball Affect the Growth of a Child
• How a Basketball Player Vertical Jump Hang Time?
• Does Mental Imagery Improve the Performance of Free Throws in Basketball?
• Why Lebron Is the Best Basketball Player of His Time?
• What Muscles Does a Basketball Player Primarily Focus on?
• How Earl Lloyd Changed Basketball History?
• How Can Basketball Affect the Growth of a Child?
• What Does the Material Record Tell Us About Human Use of Space at the Basketball Courts?
• How Has Basketball Changed My Life?
• Does Basketball Star Endorsement Work in China?
• How to Increase Stamina in Basketball with Physical Exercises?
• Are Sunk Costs Irrelevant in the Basketball?
• How Did Basketball Influence the Philippines?
• How Does Gravity Limit my Potential as a Basketball Player?
• Do You Agree that Football Play is equal to Professional Athletes?
• What Does It Take to Be a Basketball Player?
• Does the Basketball Market Believe in the ‘Hot Hand’?
• How the Dream Team Changed Basketball Forever?
• How Basketball Statistics Affect Winning Percentage for NCAA Division?
• Are Former Professional Basketball Athletes and Native Better Coaches?
• What Does Basketball Look Like Without Michael Jordan?
• Does Early Career Achievement Lead in the Basketball to Earlier Death?
• Are Professional Basketball Players Reference-Dependent?
• Does Gender Affect Compensation Among NCAA Basketball Coaches?
• How Being a Basketball Player Teaches You to Handle Defeat?
• Are You Someone Waiting to Enter the World of Basketball?
• What a Basketball Player Should Eat?
• How Is Basketball Affected by Biomechanics?
• Should College Basketball Be Banned?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Publications, let me enfold thee, an essay on basketball by gonzaga faculty member shann ray ferch.

Let me enfold thee, and hold thee to my heart. Shakespeare

What is it like to be a college basketball player?

Probably quite a bit similar to what it’s like being a college student, or a dancer, a poet, or a scientist. College basketball involves a great dream. We might say the dream is life, and then we might wonder, what does life ask of us? The answer may mean the difference between despair and hope; or the distance, nuanced, oblique, between darkness and light; or the resolution and peace that come of being in the presence of beloved others who have loved us and changed us forever.

Gonzaga University has enjoyed a sustained and by some accounts miraculous journey into the heart of college basketball. For those who love basketball and have been graced to witness the journey, there remains both the beauty and vigor of excellence developed over many days, months, and years, and also the ultimate dream of the sport: the possibility of a National Championship. At each level of competitive basketball every player who seeks a higher goal holds the dream of a championship very close. Whether or not the dream is realized is a matter left to the dynamic interplay of devotion, fortitude, chemistry, chance, fate, and luck.

This essay* is a mosaic of my own experiences playing basketball in high school, college, and in the German Bundesliga, and finding myself on the other side of the dream, held by even greater dreams about love, forgiveness, reconciliation, wholeness, and the mystery of the Divine.

* Parts of this essay appeared previously in Narrative Magazine and the book Blood Fire Vapor Smoke

In the dark I still line up the seams of the ball to the form of my fingers. I see the rim, the follow-through, the arm lifted and extended, a pure jump shot with a clean release and good form. I see the long-range trajectory and the ball on a slow backspin arcing toward the hoop, the net waiting for the swish.

In Montana, high school basketball is a thing as strong as family or work and when I grew up Jonathan Takes Enemy, a member of the Apsaalooké (Crow) Nation, was the best basketball player in the state. He led Hardin High, a school with years of losing tradition, into the state spotlight, carrying the team and the community on his shoulders all the way to the state tournament where he averaged 41 points per game. He created legendary moments that decades later are still mentioned in state basketball circles, and he did so with a force that made me both fear and respect him. On the court, nothing was outside the realm of his skill: the jump shot, the drive, the sweeping left-handed finger roll, the deep fade-away jumper. He could deliver what we all dreamed of, and with a venom that said don’t get in my way.

I was a year younger than Jonathan, playing for an all-white school in Livingston when our teams met in the divisional tournament and he and the Hardin Bulldogs delivered us a crushing 17-point defeat. At the close of the third quarter with the clock winding down and his team with a comfortable lead, Takes Enemy pulled up from one step in front of half-court and shot a straight, clean jumper. Though the range of it was more than 20 feet beyond the three-point line, his form remained pure. The audacity and raw beauty of the shot hushed the crowd. A common knowledge came to everyone: few people can even throw a basketball that far with any accuracy, let alone take a real shot with good form. Takes Enemy landed and as the ball was in the air he turned, no longer watching the flight of the ball, and began to walk back toward his team bench. The buzzer sounded, he put his fist high, the shot swished into the net. The crowd erupted.

Many of these young men did not escape the violence that surrounded the alcohol and drug traffic on the reservations, but their natural flow on the court inspired me toward the kind of boldness that gives artistry and freedom to any endeavor. Such boldness is akin to passion. For these young men, and for myself at that time, our passion was basketball.

But rather than creating in me my own intrepid response, seeing Takes Enemy only emphasized how little I knew of courage, not just on the basketball court, but in life. Takes Enemy breathed a confidence I lacked, a leadership potential that lived and moved. Robert Greenleaf said, “A mark of leaders, an attribute that puts them in a position to show the way for others, is that they are better than most at pointing the direction.” Takes Enemy was better than most. He and his team worked as one as they played with fluidity and abandon. I began to look for this way of life as an athlete and as a person. The search brought me to people who lived life not through dominance or coercion but through love and freedom of movement.

In the half dark of the house, a light burning over my shoulder, I find myself asking who commandeers the vessels of our dreams? I see Jonathan Takes Enemy like a war horse running, fierce and filled with immense power. The question gives me pause to remember him and his artistry, and how he played for something more.

By the time my brother Kral and I reached high school, we both had the dream, Kral already on his way to the top, me two years younger and trying to learn everything I could. We’d received the dream equally from our father and from the rez, the Crow rez at Plenty Coups, and the Tsitsistas (Northern Cheyenne) rez in the southeast corner of Montana. In Montana tribal basketball is a game of speed and precision passing, a form of controlled wildness that is hard to come by in non-reservation basketball circles. Fast and quick-handed, the rez ballers rise like something elemental, finding each other with sleight of hand stylings and no-look passes, pressing and cutting in stream-like movements that converge to rivers, taking down passing lanes with no will but to create chaos and action and fury, the kind of kindle that smolders and leaps up to set whole forests aflame.

Kral and I lost the dream late, both having made it to the D-1 level, both with opportunity to play overseas, but neither of us making the NBA.

Along the way, I helped fulfill our father’s tenacious hopes: two state championships at Park High in Livingston, one first as a sophomore with Kral, a massive win in which the final score was 104 to 64, with Kral totaling 46 points, 20 rebounds, and three dunks. And one two years later when I was a senior with a band of runners that averaged nearly 90 points a game before there was a three-point line. We took the title in what sportswriters still refer to as the greatest game in Montana high school basketball history, a 99-97 double-overtime thriller in 85’ at the Max Worthington Arena at Montana State University, before a crowd of 10,000.

Afterward on the bus ride through the mountains I remember my chest pressed to the back of the seat as I stared behind us. The post-game show blared over the speakers, everyone still whooping and hollering. “We’re comin’ home!” the radio man yelled, “We’re coming home!” and from the wide back window I saw a line of cars miles long and lit up, snaking from the flat before Livingston all the way up the pass to Bozeman. The dream of a dream, the Niitsítapi and the Apsaalooké, the Blackfeet and the Crow, the Nēhilawē and the Tsitsistas, the Cree and the Northern Cheyenne, the white boys, the enemies and the friends, and the clean line of basketball walking us out toward skeletal hoops in the dead of winter, the hollow in our eyes lonely but lovely in its way.

At Montana State University, I played shooting guard on the last team in the league my freshman year. Our team: seven Black men from all across America and five White kids mostly from Montana. We had a marvelous, magical point guard from Portland named Tony Hampton. He was lightning fast with wonderful ball-handling skills and exceptional court vision. He brought us together with seven games left in the season. Our record at the time was 7 wins, 16 losses. Last place in the conference. “We are getting shoved down by this coaching staff,” he said, and I remember how the criticism and malice were thick from the coaches. Their jobs were on the line. They’d lost touch with their players. Their players had lost touch with them. Tony said, “We need to band together right now. No one is going to do it for us. Whenever you see a teammate dogged by a coach, go up and give that teammate love. Tell him good job. Keep it up. We’re in this together.”

A team talk like that doesn’t typically change a season.

This one did.

Tony spoke the words. We followed him and did what he asked, and we went on a seven-game win streak, starting that very night when we beat the 17th-ranked team in the country, on the road. The streak didn’t end until the NCAA tournament eight games later. In that stretch, Tony averaged 19 points and 11 assists per game. He led the way and we were unfazed by outside degradation. We had our own inner strength. Playing as one, we won the final three games of the regular season. We entered the Big Sky Conference tournament in last place and beat the fourth-, second-, and first-place teams in the league to advance to March Madness. When we came home from the conference tournament as champions, it felt like the entire town of Bozeman was at the airport to greet us. We waded through a river of people giving high fives and held a fiery pep rally with speeches and roars of applause.

We went on to the NCAA tournament as the last-ranked team, the 64th team in a tournament which at that time had only 64 teams. We were slated to play St. John’s, the number one team in the nation. We faced off in the first game of the southwest regional at Long Beach, and far into the second half we were up by four. St. John’s featured future NBA players Mark Jackson (future NBA All-Star), Walter Berry (collegiate player of the year), and Shelton Jones (future winner of the NBA dunk contest). We featured no one with national recognition. We played well and had the lead late in the second half, but in the end we lost by nine.

When my brother graduated from Montana State I transferred and played my final two seasons of college basketball for Pepperdine University. At that time, Pepperdine had been a league-leading team for many years. Our main rival was Loyola Marymount University, featuring consensus All-American Hank Gathers and the multi-talented scorer Bo Kimble. My senior year at Pepperdine we beat Loyola Marymount 127-114 in a true barn-burner! Also a fine grudge match, considering they beat us earlier in the season at their place. We were set to play each other in the championship game of the West Coast Conference tournament but before we could meet at the top of the bracket, Hank died, and the tournament was immediately canceled.

The funeral was in Los Angeles, a ceremony of gut-wrenching grief and bereavement in which we gathered to honor one of the nation’s young most-radiant men. We prayed for him and for his family and for all who would come after him bearing his legacy of love for the game, elite athleticism, and the gift of living life to the full. His team went on to the NCAA tournament and made it all the way to the Elite 8. Bo Kimble shot his first free-throw of the NCAA tournament left-handed in honor of Hank. The shot went in. The nation mourned. The athletes who knew Hank were never the same.

As a freshman in high school, I was tiny, barely five feet tall, and my goal was to play Division 1 basketball. I’d had this goal since I was a child and because of my height and weight it seemed impossible, and actually felt impossible. I was small, but I made a deal with myself to do whatever it might take from my end to try to get to the D-1 level, so if I did not accomplish the goal, I knew at least I had given my all. I grew eight inches the summer before my sophomore year in high school, thanked heaven, and began to think perhaps the goal was not totally out of reach.

Hour after hour. Everyday. The dream was now fully formed, bright shining, and excruciating. I played 8 hours per day before my junior year, 10 hours per day before my senior season. At the height of it I played 17 hours in one day. Hours of solitude and physical exhaustion were plentiful. I gave my life to the discipline of being a point guard and a shooting guard. I worked on moves, passing, shooting, defending, ball handling. The regimen involved getting up at 7 a.m. at the singlewide trailer we lived in, on my bike by 7:40, traveling the highway toward Livingston, yellow transistor radio (borrowed from my mom) in the front pocket of my windbreaker, the ball tucked up under the coat, and me riding to Eastside, the court bordered by a grade school to the east, the sheriff’s station and the firehall to the north, and small houses to the west. A few blocks south, the Yellowstone River moved and churned and flowed east. Above the river a wall of mountains reached halfway up the sky.

Mostly I was by myself, but because the town had a love for basketball, there were many hours with friends too. In those moments with others, or isolated hours trying to hone my individual basketball skills, I faced many, many frustrations, but finally the body broke into the delight of hard work and found a rhythm, a pattern in which there was the slow advance toward something greater than oneself. Often the threshold of life is a descent into darkness, a powerful and intimate and abiding darkness in which the light finally emerges.

“Beauty will save the world,” Dostoevsky said.

Because of basketball I know there exists the reality of being encumbered or full of grace, beset with darkness and or in convergence with light. This interplay echoes the wholly realized vision of exceptional point guards and the daring of pure shooting guards, met with fortitude even under immense pressure.

At Eastside, both low end and high end have square metal backboards marked by quarter-sized holes to keep the wind from knocking the baskets down. Livingston is the fifth windiest city in the world. The playground has a slant to it that makes one basket lower than the other. The low end is nine-feet, 10 inches high, and we all come here to throw down in the summer. Too small, they say, but we don’t listen. Inside-outside, between-the-legs, behind-the-back, cross it up, skip-to-my-lou, fake and go, doesn't matter, any of these lose the defender. Then we rise up and throw down. We rig up a break-away on the rim and because of the way we hang on it in the summer, our hands get thick and tough. We can all dunk now, so the break-away is a necessity, a spring-loaded rim made to handle the power of power-dunks. The break-away rim came into being after Darryl Dawkins, nicknamed Chocolate Thunder, broke two of the big glass backboards in the NBA. On the first one Dawkins’ force was so immense the glass caved in and fell out the back of the frame. On the second, the window exploded and everyone ducked their heads and ran to avoid the fractured glass that flew from one end of the court to the other. Within two years every high school in the nation had break-aways, and my friends and I convinced our assistant coach to give us one so we could put it up on the low end at Eastside.

The high end is the shooter's end, made for the pure shooter, a silver ring 10-feet, two inches high with a long white net. At night the car lights bring it alive, rim and backboard like an industrial artwork, everything mounted on a steel-grey pole that stems down into the concrete, down deep into the hard soil.

A senior in high school, I’m 17. I leave the car lights on, cut the engine and grab my basketball from the heat in the passenger foot space. I step out. The air is crisp. The wind carries the cold, dry smell of autumn, and further down, more faint, the smell of roots, the smell of earth. Out over the city, strands of cloud turn grey, then black. When the sun goes down there is a depth of night unfathomable, the darkness rent by a flurry of stars.

I call the ballers by name, the great Native basketball legends, some my own contemporaries, some who came before. I learn from them and receive the river, their smoothness, their brazenness, like the Yellowstone River seven blocks south, dark and wide, stronger than the city it surrounds, perfect in form where it moves and speaks, bound by night. If I listen my heroes lift me out away from here, fly me farther than they flew themselves. In Montana, young men are Native and they are White, loving, hating. At Lodge Grass, at Lame Deer, I was afraid at first. But now I see. The speaking and the listening, the welcoming: Tim Falls Down, Marty Round Face and Max and Luke Spotted Bear from Plenty Coups; Joe Pretty Paint from Lodge Grass; and at St. Labre, Juneau Plenty Hawk, Willie Gardner, and Fred and Paul Deputee. All I loved, all I watched with wonder—and few got free.

Most played ball for my father, a few for rival teams. Some I watched as a child, and I loved the uncontrolled nature of their moves. Some I grew up playing against. And some I merely heard of in basketball circles years later, the rumble of their greatness, the stories of games won or lost on last second shots.

The body in unison, the step, the gather, the arc of the ball in the air like a crescent moon—the follow-through a small well-lit cathedral, the correct push and the floppy wrist, the proper backspin, the arm held high, the night, the ball, the basket, everything illumined.

We are given moments like these, to rise with Highwalker and Falls Down and Spotted Bear, with Round Face and Old Bull and Takes Enemy: to shoot the jump shot and feel the follow through that lifts and finds a path in the air, the sound, the sweetness of the ball on a solitary arc in darkness as the ball falls into the net.

All is complete. The maze lies open, an imprint that reminds me of the Highline, the Blackfeet and Charlie Calf Robe, the Crow and Joe Pretty Paint, the Cheyenne and Highwalker, a form of forms that is a memory trace and the weaving of a line begun by Native men, by White men, by my father and Calf Robe’s and Pretty Paint’s and Highwalker’s fathers, by our fathers’ fathers, and by all the fathers that have gone before, some of them distant and many gone, all of them beautiful in their way.

Fresh from professional ball in Germany I went with my dad to the Charlie Calf Robe Memorial Tournament on the Blackfeet rez in northeast Montana. The tribe devoted an entire halftime to my father and he didn't even coach on that reservation. They presented him with a beaded belt buckle and a blanket for the coaching he’d done on other reservations, the Cheynne rez, the Crow rez—to show their respect for him as an elder who was a friend to the Native Nations of Montana. During the ceremony they wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, signifying he would always be welcome in the tribe.

On that weekend with him, I received an unforeseen wholly unique gift. Dedicated as a memorial to the high school athlete Charlie Calf Robe, a young Blackfeet artist, long distance runner, and basketball player who died young, the tournament was a form of community grieving over the loss of a beloved son. The Most Valuable Player award was made by Charlie’s wife, Honey Davis, who spent nine months crafting an entirely beaded basketball for the event. When the tribe and Honey herself presented the ball to me, and I walked through the gym with my father, an old Blackfeet man approached us. He touched my arm, and smiled a wide smile.

“You can’t dribble that one, sonny” he said.

I saw my father’s father only a handful of times.

He lived in little more than a one room shack in Circle, Montana. In the shack next door was my grandfather’s brother, a trapper who dried animal hides on boards and leaned them against walls and tables. I remember rattlesnake rattles in a small pile on the surface of a wooden three-legged stool. A hunting knife with a horn handle. On the floor, small and medium-sized closed steel traps. An old rifle in the corner near the door.

My father and I drive the two-lane highway as we enter town. We pick up my grandfather stumbling drunk down the middle of the road and take him home.

Years later my grandpa sits in the same worn linoleum kitchen in an old metal chair with vinyl backing. Dim light from the window. His legs crossed, a rolled cigarette lit in his left hand, he runs his right hand through a shock of silver hair atop his head, bangs yellowed by nicotine. Bent or upright or sideways, empty beer cans litter the floor.

“Who is it?” he says, squinting into the dark.

“Tommy,” my dad says, “your son.”

“Who?” the old man says.

When we leave, my grandpa still doesn’t recognize him.

On the way home through the dark, I watch my father’s eyes.

My grandfather was largely isolated late in life. No family members were near him when he died. He once loved to walk the hills after the spring runoff in search of arrowheads with his family. But in my grandpa’s condition before death his desire for life was eclipsed. He became morose and very depressed. In the end, alcohol killed him.

There’s J.P. Batista, a powerful player dubbed “The Beast” when he played here because he could score on anyone, and if he was hungry on the court, which was always, we said “Feed the Beast!” There’s David Pendergraft, perhaps the most beloved generational talent in Gonzaga’s history because he played with unquenchable fire and if he was guarding the best player on the other team, which was nearly always, the other team was in trouble. There’s Ronny Turiaf, a man whose heart was as big as the world, on and off the court. Finally, there’s Mike Nilson, the soul of the first GU teams to break through into the dream of advancing far into March Madness, a beautiful person with uncommon tenacity and loyalty, who serves others with grace and ease. Too many to be named, the players the community has welcomed, known and loved leave a legacy we as dear as any championship run.

In present-day Montana, with its cold winters and far distant towns, the love of high school basketball is a time-honored tradition. Native teams have most often dominated the basketball landscape, winning multiple state titles on the shoulders of modern day warriors who are both highly skilled and intrepid.

Tribal basketball comes like a fresh wind to change the climate of the reservation from downtrodden to celebrational. Plenty Coups with Luke Spotted Bear and Dana Goes Ahead won two state championships in the early eighties. After that, Lodge Grass, under Elvis Old Bull won three straight. Jonathan Takes Enemy remains perhaps the most revered. Deep finger rolls with either hand, his jumpshot a thing of beauty, with his quick vertical leap he threw down 360s, and with power. We played against each other numerous times in high school, his teams still revered by the old guard, a competition fiery and glorious, and then we went our separate ways.

For a few months he attended Sheridan Community College in Wyoming then dropped out.

He played city league, his name appearing in the Billings papers with him scoring over 60 points on occasion, and once 73.

Later I heard he’d done some drinking, gained weight, and become mostly immobile.

But soon after that he cleaned up, lost weight, earned a scholarship at Rocky Mountain College and formed a nice career averaging a bundle of assists and over 20 points a game. A prize-winning article on Takes Enemy appeared in “Sports Illustrated.”

A few years ago we sat down again at a tournament called the Big Sky Games. We didn’t talk much about the past. He’d been off the Crow reservation for awhile, living on the Yakima reservation in Washington. He said he felt he had to leave Montana. He’d found a good job. His vision was on his family. The way his eyes lit up when he spoke of his daughter was a clear reflection of his life, a man willing to sacrifice to enrich others. His face was full of promise, and thinking of her he smiled. “She’ll graduate from high school this year,” he said, and it became apparent to me that the happiness he felt was greater than all the fame that came of the personal honors he had attained.

Jonathan Takes Enemy navigated the personal terrain necessary to be present to to his daughter. I hope to follow him and be present for my daughters. By walking into and through the night he eventually left the dark behind and found light rising to greet him.

Inside me still are the memories of players I knew as a boy, the stories of basketball legends. From Montana, from Gonzaga, from Europe. The geography of such stories still shapes the way I speak or grow quiet, and shapes my understanding of things that begin in fine lines and continue until all the lines are gathered and woven to a greater image. That image, circular, airborne, is the outline and the body of my hope.

The drive is not far and before long I’m at Mission Park. I take the ball from the space in the backseat of my car and walk out onto the court. I approach the top of the key where I bounce the ball twice before I gather and release a high-arcing jumpshot.

Beside me, Blake Walks Nice sends his jumper into the air and Joe Pretty Paint’s follow through stands like the neck of a swan.

The ball falls from the sky toward the open rim and the diamond-patterned net.

Behind us and to the side only darkness.

An arm of steel extends from the high corner of a nearby building.

A light burns there.

As we draw near to another NCAA tournament, I don’t want to forget the dream. The following poem is written in honor of Jose Hernandez, Tony Hampton, Melichi Four Bear, Gernell Killsnight, Jonathan Takes Enemy, Dexter Howard, Doug Christie, J.P. Batista, Ronny Turiaf, David Pendergraft, Mike Nilson, Tim Falls Down, Bobby Jones, Paul Deputee, Blake Walks Nice, Ron Moses and so many other men, each of us inscribed by culture, intuition, race, and love, each of us united by an elegant game, and united by giving ourselves so that others might become more beautiful, more holy. Of the group above, one died a difficult death after years in prison at the outskirts of San Francisco, another was shot in the head by a high-powered rifle at a party near Crow Agency, a third was knifed to death outside Jim Town Bar, a fourth took his own life by hanging, a fifth died of an alcohol-laced car wreck when his vehicle flew from a bridge into a winter river. The rest are still alive. The rest still love with an undying love those who have passed before us to the next world. We receive from them the blessing they give, and we ask God for the mercy to keep the dream.

the way your hands moved through mid-air reaching for round light leather has always been to me not unlike the intimate fusion that connects the core of high magnitude stars

in the place where God shapes bones and ligament, fingers, thumb and palm we hated each other, brother, until basketball made me a point guard and you a swing man flyer who walked on wind

collectively we’d set our bodies to beat one another until our faces cracked like porcelain and blood-rivers ran the cheek-bone shelves of a south sunk in wine-water because America meant us for violence

but better than we knew God knew us and now that the game is over i can’t unremember you enfolding me as I hold you to my heart and you cup your hand to the back of my head

About the Author

Poet and prose writer Shann Ray Ferch teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University. Ferch is the author of a work of leadership and political theory, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity: Servant Leadership as a Way of Life (Rowman & Littlefield), and co-editor of Servant-Leadership, Feminism, and Gender Well-Being (SUNY Press), Servant-Leadership and Forgiveness (SUNY Press), Global Servant-Leadership (Rowman &Littlefield), Conversations on Servant Leadership (SUNY Press) and The Spirit of Servant Leadership (Paulist Press). In his role as professor of leadership studies with the internationally renowned PhD program in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga, he has served as a visiting scholar in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. His novel, American Copper (Unbridled Press), is a love song to America revealing the radiant and profound life of Evelynne Lowry, a woman who transcends the national myth of regeneration through violence. The novel won the Foreword Book of the Year Readers’ Choice Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the High Plains Book Award and the Foreword Book of the Year Award for Literary Fiction. Explore more of his writing here . 

• Doctor of Philosophy in Leadership Studies

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Essays About Basketball: Top 5 Examples and 7 Prompts

Among the many essays about basketball out there, how can you make yours stand out? See this article for examples and prompts that will aid you in writing.

Basketball is a famous sport that has been around for 131 years. It was invented by a Canadian physical education instructor named James Naismith with two objectives: to keep athletes playing indoors during winters and to have a safer sport compared to football.

Over the years, basketball has grown to be a loved sport worldwide. It’s why it’s not surprising that it’s a great subject to talk about in your essay.

Below are examples to learn more about the game and how you can effectively write essays about basketball:

1. What Basketball Taught Me by Josh of San Diego, California

2. essay on basketball –  a sport of agility and endurance by randhir singh, 3. national basketball association and the woman national basketball association by lewis rios, 4. basketball: then vs. now by jaime moss, 5. essay on the last shot by darcy frey by mamie olson, 1. the most important skills for basketball, 2. what i learned through basketball, 3. why do i like basketball, 4. my unforgettable basketball experience, 5. my life as a basketball player, 6. basketball book or movie review, 7. the negative side of basketball.

“I believe basketball has taught me many valuable life lessons, and perhaps more importantly, played a significant role in developing me into the successful student and employee I am today.”

The author talks about how he fell in love with the basketball game – from watching it on television to participating in competitive basketball. He took the game with him as he grew. 

Through this sport, he learned many lessons, including commitment, responsibility, and teamwork. He expounds on how these values helped him through life through his essay. Finally, he ends his piece by encouraging others to try basketball or any sport to have motivation in life. For more, see these articles about basketball .

“Basketball is a sport of agility and endurance that develops by hand and eye co-ordination… Basketball even overtakes baseball as the unofficial American pastime.”

Singh reviews basketball rules and how they changed over time but with the same principles. He discusses the main rules and scenarios straightforwardly, making his essay short but informative. You may also be interested in these articles about baseball .

“Some of the differences between NBA basketball and WNBA basketball appear to be related to the differences in size or physical capacity of men and women… I think we can all come to the conclusion that no matter what the gender is or what the rules are, that both of them are out on the basketball court to just WIN.”

Rios’ essay focuses on the differences between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Women’s NBA. Some of the things he mentions are ESPN and their basketball video game, where fewer people spend time on WNBA. Additionally, owners of WNBA significantly make less from their teams, thus having less to invest in or pay their players.

He also talks about some similarities between NBA and WNBA, including their popularity among fans. At the end of his essay, Rios hopes he has shared enough information with his readers about basketball.

“Other changes such as uniform colors, dunking rules, regulation on backboards… some over and over again until they became what they are today… Basketball is a great American sport, and perhaps one that requires the most skill along with a great mental game.”

Moss’ essay consists of James Naismith’s original 13 basketball rules and how these rules evolved. These modifications were done to make the game more efficient and fun. Some significant changes include dribbling, boundary lines, and pointing systems. 

He also mentions the controversy surrounding the three-pointer and how it affected the other game rules. In the future, basketball’s rules will continue to develop.

“I do think basketball is a valid option for most students to escape poverty… Basketball may open a few doors but there’s still no guarantee.”

The author recounts what The Last Shot by Darcy Frey is all about, retelling the story of Russel, Tchaka, Stephon, and Cory, who lived in a dangerous neighborhood and found escape in basketball. She then relays her input of basketball, helping these characters stay out of trouble, but it still isn’t enough to prepare them for the lives they’ll have to endure. 

She further expounds on the events in the book, centering on the direct relation between academics and basketball in the story. You might also be interested in these essays about volleyball .

7 Prompts on Essays About Basketball

After understanding more about the different subtopics of basketball, here are prompts that you can get inspiration from for your essay:

You don’t have to be a basketball player to know what skills are in demand for the game. You can simply be a fan or a casual spectator who knows how the game works. Tell your readers what you are so they can appreciate your essay from your point of view. 

Dedication, commitment, and consistency are only some of the things you develop when you love a sport. If you’re not a player yourself, but a close relative is, you can relay what they told you about basketball.

For example, you can relate to what your father tells you when you watch basketball gameplays with him. He may say he loves a particular team because of their teamwork. He may also say it shows in their gameplay. Then, you can delve into what “teamwork” means.

Like the other prompts in this list, this particular prompt doesn’t need you to be a player. Instead, to give you an idea, you can share your experience with the game, such as watching gameplay and liking how the people cheer for the players.

 You can also narrate how great the game was, not because the players are professionals but because they never give up.

If you’re a basketball player yourself, feel free to recount a scene that played out in one of your games that you will never forget. Describe how you got to that point and why. Include what it made you feel like then and what it makes you feel now. 

If you expect non-players to read your piece, write in a way that non-players will understand by avoiding basketball jargon. Or you can briefly explain what those related terms mean, so every reader will understand why it’s a memory you hold dear.

If no one thing stands out for you during your time as a basketball player, you can still write about it in the general term. For instance, you can share how a day in your life went when you were a player.

There are many books, movies, and literary pieces that you can check out and write an essay about. If you have a favorite piece about basketball, briefly summarize it and list why you’re so fond of it. You can also persuade your readers to check out the book themselves through these prompts.

Are you new to persuasive writing? For help with this topic, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing ?

You can write about the problems connected to the game to give your essay a different atmosphere, such as the potential injuries for players, bullying within a team, or how few only make it to professional basketball. You can talk about something you want to give attention to and let your readers know your thoughts on it.

On the other hand, you can also share a bad experience related to basketball, like your father preferring to watch basketball on television than play with you and your siblings.

Here’s a great tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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• Basketball Essay

Essay on Basketball

Basketball is a widely popular and loved sport that is played all around the world. An essay on basketball would be incomplete without the mention of its smart moves and team-building benefits. Basketball is believed to have originated in Canada and the United States of America in the 19th century. There are several health benefits of playing basketball and it is an extremely fun physical activity. In this informative essay about basketball, the various benefits of playing basketball are discussed.

An Essay on Basketball and its Benefits 

While penning down the short paragraph about basketball this needs to be mentioned that when basketball is played, it is meant to be a source of joy and pleasure among its players. The aim of the play is to pass the ball through the basket which is hung on some height. Basketball can be a game between two individuals or, in the case of professional games, it is played between two opposing teams consisting of five players in each team. The score is determined by hitting the basket of each other’s teams. 

Due to the demand for heavy physicality from its players, basketball is highly favored. In this essay on basketball, the several health benefits of playing this sport are discussed:

Basketball is essential in promoting cardiovascular health among its players. It is immensely helpful for one’s heart health. Due to the game’s constant locomotion, the heart rate shows an increase. Thus, basketball lowers the risk of stroke and other heart diseases. 

Basketball is supremely effective in burning calories. Due to its constant, quick movements of running and jumping, basketball acts as a great way of working out and can drastically burn calories. 

Basketball strengthens the bones of its players. Due to the game’s primary dependence on physical energy, basketball results in bone strength among its players. The players’ muscles and bones get strengthened because of the game’s constant action of working muscles against the bones. 

One of the key health benefits which come from playing basketball is boosted immunity and reduced stress. Due to the busy nature of the game, the levels of stress among the players get reduced quite significantly. And with this decreased level of stress, the immune system gets boosted.

The dedicated practice of basketball develops better coordination among its players and improves their motor skills. The nature of basketball demands its players for excellent hand-eye and full-body coordination. Due to continuous training, the players develop their full-body coordination as well as their hand-eye coordination through the practises of dribbling and rebound shots.

Therefore, the health benefits of playing basketball are evident in the physical and mental fitness of the player. Apart from improving one’s overall health and height, the sport also develops fast-thinking abilities, reflex, and team spirit in youngsters.   

Basketball Experience Essay: Tournaments and Players

Now coming to the top basketball tournaments, an essay on basketball is simply incomplete without the mention of these names:

Basketball World Cup

Basketball at the Olympics

American tournaments like NBA, Argentine League LNB

Italian League

Spanish ACB league

To get a full-on understanding of the game and write down a basketball experience essay, one must watch these tournaments. The pace of the tournaments is such that one will automatically grow an addiction towards them. Then, if he is asked to write a basketball descriptive essay he will be able to write it easily.

Basketball essay writing becomes a cakewalk for someone who has grown up watching legends like Kobe Bryant playing the game with elan. The American sportsman spent his entire career playing for Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association. He breathed his last on 26th January 2020. He took the popularity of the sport to a different level and will be remembered for generations to come. 

Finally, if any of the important basketball essay topics are often left out then it has to be- ‘The Famous Indian Basketball Players.’ This basketball essay in English doesn’t do that. It humbly acknowledges the contribution of the famous Indian basketball players like Sat Prasad Yadav, Akilan Pari, and Prashanti Singh. They have made it really big over the years and continue to inspire millions of basketball players from all across the country. 

An Essay on My Favourite Game - Basketball

Basketball is a widely popular game that is played by several people all across the globe. In this section of basketball essay topics, the topics which will be discussed are the benefits of basketball in a person’s physical and mental health. There are several ways a person can benefit from playing basketball and those benefits are discussed in this basketball introduction essay.

The Basketball Essay in Short

Numerous physical and mental benefits result from playing basketball. Basketball is highly effective in promoting the cardiovascular health of its players. A healthy heart diminishes risks of heart diseases later in one’s life. Basketball’s high physical demand is crucial in burning calories and reducing body fat in its players.

Basketball also strengthens the bones due to the constant friction of muscles against them. It improves the immune system of the body and is effective in increasing players’ self-esteem.

Therefore, this is a complete essay on basketball in English which throws light on the game’s health benefits as well as how it helps to shape the entire personality of a player. 

FAQs on Basketball Essay

1. What is the Highest Governing Body in Basketball?

FIBA ( International Basketball Federation) is the highest governing body in basketball.  

2. Name Some of the Famous Basketball Players in the World. 

Michael Jordan, Lebron James, and Late Kobe Bryant are some of the famous basketball players of all time. 

3. Which Court is Considered as the Main Court in Basketball- The Outdoor Court or the Indoor Court?

In basketball, the indoor court is considered as the main court while the game played on the outdoor court is often called street ball. 

4. What are the health benefits of playing basketball? 

Playing basketball results in countless health benefits from burning calories to improving heart health by lowering the risk of getting a stroke. But a great cardiovascular health isn’t the only amazing health benefit playing this sport provides. It also strengthens one’s bones as well as muscles. It also leads to boosting of one’s immune system. And like engaging in almost any other sport or exercise, playing basketball has also shown to reduce the stress levels of its players quite conspicuously. This way, playing basketball also has a positive effect on not only one’s physical health, but their mental health as well.  

5. Who are some of the most famous basketball players? How does this sport shape the personality of its players?

Some of the most famous and highly respected basketball players include LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Satnam Singh, Amritpal Singh, and Prashanti Singh to name a few. 

Basketball tends to mould and shape the personality of the players just as much as it improves their physical and mental health. There are a lot of values, ethical beliefs, and other such aspects from the game that one can even apply to their everyday life like sportsmanship, teamwork, confidence, etc. 

6. What are some interesting facts about basketball? 

Initially, as the sport started, dribbling was not allowed at all and if a player got the - ball at a point and they compulsorily had to throw it to another player and continue the game like that. 

A physical education teacher, James Naismith, is the one who invented this sport and also wrote down the very first, the official rulebook of basketball.  

Michael Jordan wore his signature Air Jordans, his favorite shoes, by paying a fine as these shoes went against the guidelines of the NBA dress code. 

At the very beginning of it all, basketball was actually played with a soccer ball and a peach basket. 

7. What are some important rules of basketball? 

Some basic yet key rules of the game are: 

Each team is supposed to have 5 players present on the court at all times during the game. 

In order to win, a team has to score more field goals than the opponent team.

A player is not allowed to run with the ball; a player is only supposed to advance the ball by dribbling or passing and if a player stops dribbling, they have to either pass it or shoot it, not resume dribbling. 

There are quite a lot of fouls in the game and elbowing, blocking, tripping or knocking someone off, are some of the most common ones. 

To inbound the ball, the offense only has 5 seconds. 

Defenders are not allowed to interfere with a shot that is on a downward trajectory. In fact, this is considered to be illegal and is known as goaltending as it grants an automatic field goal to the offence then.

Both the ball handler as well as the ball have to remain within the boundaries of the court at all times. 

The defending team is legally allowed to block or steal the ball from the offending team and they can even use defensive tactics to prevent the latter from shooting and/or scoring. 

Each team has only a limited period of time during a given possession to shoot the ball. While in the NBA, this time limit is 24 seconds, in the NCCA, it is about 30 seconds. 

8. How does Vedantu encourage students to study?

One of the most popular and modern features of Vedantu is its one-on-one live interaction amongst the teacher and their students. As it is known, learning and studying by yourself with the help of the internet, and doing that in the presence of a teaching expert are two majorly different things with the latter being way more effective. This live interaction lets students communicate their thoughts and ideas more smoothly and also helps with the doubt-solving more easily. This social structure within Vedantu is one of the main ways through which it pushes students to study and speak their minds out loud. This is why Vedantu is a highly recommended portal for students to brighten their future. 

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114 Basketball Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Title: 114 Basketball Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Introduction:

Basketball is a popular and dynamic sport that has captivated the hearts of millions worldwide. Whether you are an avid player, a die-hard fan, or simply interested in sports, writing an essay about basketball can offer a unique and engaging experience. To help you get started, we have compiled a list of 114 basketball essay topic ideas and examples. From historical milestones to the impact of basketball on society, these topics cover a wide range of aspects related to the sport. Let's explore some of the exciting possibilities!

• The Evolution of Basketball: From its inception to modern-day techniques and strategies.
• The Impact of Basketball on American Culture: How basketball has influenced music, fashion, and entertainment.
• The Role of Women in Basketball: Examining the growth and contributions of female athletes in the sport.
• The Psychological Benefits of Basketball: Exploring the positive effects of playing basketball on mental health.
• The Business of Basketball: Analyzing the economic aspects of the sport, including sponsorships and endorsements.
• The Importance of Teamwork in Basketball: Discussing how collaboration and cooperation contribute to success on the court.
• The Role of Coaches in Basketball: Investigating the influence of coaches on player development and team performance.
• The Impact of Basketball on Youth Development: Examining how basketball can shape character, discipline, and leadership skills.
• The Rivalry Between NBA Teams: Analyzing legendary rivalries and their impact on the sport.
• The Psychology of Winning and Losing in Basketball: Exploring the mindset of athletes during victories and defeats.
• The Influence of Basketball in Education: Assessing the benefits of integrating basketball into school curricula.
• The Globalization of Basketball: Investigating how the sport has spread and gained popularity worldwide.
• The Role of Basketball in Social Justice Movements: Examining the efforts of basketball players to advocate for equality and social change.
• The Impact of Basketball Analytics: Analyzing the use of data and statistics in basketball strategy and player evaluation.
• The Role of Basketball in Community Development: Discussing how basketball programs can foster a sense of belonging and unity in local communities.

To provide a glimpse into the potential depth and breadth of basketball essay topics, here are a few examples:

• The Legendary Rivalry: Comparing and contrasting the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
• The Rise of Women's Basketball: Investigating the evolution of the WNBA and its impact on gender equality in sports.
• The Influence of Michael Jordan: Analyzing the cultural impact and legacy of one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
• From Slum to Stardom: Exploring the inspiring journey of basketball players who overcame adversity to achieve success.
• The Global Phenomenon: Examining the impact of Yao Ming on the popularity of basketball in China.
• The Power of Basketball Films: Analyzing how movies like "Hoosiers" and "Space Jam" have contributed to the sport's cultural significance.
• The NBA and Social Activism: Discussing the efforts of players like LeBron James and Colin Kaepernick in advocating for social justice.

Conclusion:

Basketball offers a vast array of essay topics that can captivate and inspire both sports enthusiasts and academic minds alike. Whether you choose to delve into historical moments, cultural impacts, or the psychology behind the sport, exploring the various aspects of basketball can lead to thought-provoking and engaging essays. The 114 topic ideas and examples provided here are just the tip of the iceberg, so feel free to dive deeper and discover your own unique basketball essay topics.

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Essay on Basketball

Students are often asked to write an essay on Basketball in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Basketball

Introduction to basketball.

Basketball is a popular sport enjoyed worldwide. It was invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891. The game is played between two teams, each aiming to score by shooting a ball into the opponent’s hoop.

Rules of the Game

Each team consists of five players. The game begins with a jump ball. The team that scores the most points by shooting the ball through the hoop wins. There are rules against holding the ball and making physical contact.

Skills in Basketball

Basketball requires skills like dribbling, passing, and shooting. It also demands physical fitness, teamwork, and strategic thinking. Players need to be quick, agile, and coordinated.

Why We Love Basketball

Basketball is thrilling and dynamic. It encourages teamwork and promotes physical fitness. It’s not just a game, but a way of life for many, teaching valuable lessons about cooperation, discipline, and hard work.

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250 Words Essay on Basketball

Introduction.

Basketball, a globally acclaimed sport, is a dynamic game that combines physical prowess with strategic thinking. The sport is not only about scoring points but also about the integration of teamwork, discipline, and perseverance.

The Essence of the Game

The beauty of basketball lies in its simplicity and the profound skills it demands. From shooting, dribbling, passing to defending, each aspect of the game requires a unique set of skills, making it a comprehensive physical activity. Moreover, the constant movement across the court boosts cardiovascular health and promotes physical fitness.

Teamwork and Strategy

Basketball is a team sport, and its essence lies in the harmony of the team. Each player’s role is crucial, but the collective effort determines the outcome. The game fosters a sense of unity and camaraderie, as players must strategize and communicate effectively to outscore their opponents.

Life Skills through Basketball

Beyond the court, basketball teaches invaluable life skills. It instills discipline, as players must adhere to rules and respect officials’ decisions. The game also encourages resilience; players must rebound from setbacks and maintain a competitive spirit, mirroring life’s ups and downs.

Basketball, therefore, is more than a game. It is a blend of physicality, strategy, and life lessons. Its global popularity is a testament to its capacity to entertain, educate, and inspire, making it a quintessential sport in today’s world.

500 Words Essay on Basketball

Basketball, a sport that has captivated millions across the globe, is a dynamic game that demands both physical prowess and mental agility. Invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891, it has evolved from a simple indoor game into an international spectacle, played in arenas filled with thousands of fans and broadcast worldwide.

At its core, basketball is a game of strategy and skill. Each team, consisting of five players, aims to score by shooting the ball through the opponent’s hoop while preventing the opposing team from doing the same. The game is played in quarters, each lasting 12 minutes in professional leagues and slightly less in amateur games. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Physical and Mental Demands

Basketball demands a high level of physical fitness. Players require strength, endurance, agility, and hand-eye coordination to excel. Yet, the game is not purely physical. It also requires strategic thinking, teamwork, and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure. Players must constantly adapt to the changing dynamics of the game, making split-second decisions that can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

The Impact of Basketball

Basketball’s impact extends beyond the court. It has become a powerful social and cultural force. The sport has been a platform for athletes to influence societal issues and inspire younger generations. From Michael Jordan’s global brand influence to LeBron James’s activism, basketball players have leveraged their fame for greater causes.

Technological Influence on Basketball

Technology has also had a significant impact on basketball. From advanced analytics that help coaches devise strategies, to wearable tech that aids in player performance and injury prevention, technology has become an integral part of the game. It has also transformed the fan experience, with live streaming, virtual reality, and interactive platforms bringing the game closer to fans around the world.

In conclusion, basketball is more than just a sport. It is a test of physical and mental fortitude, a platform for social change, and a barometer of technological advancements. As the game continues to evolve, it will undoubtedly continue to captivate and inspire, embodying the spirit of competition and the joy of teamwork.

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Basketball College Essays Samples For Students

120 samples of this type

During studying in college, you will certainly need to craft a lot of College Essays on Basketball. Lucky you if putting words together and turning them into meaningful text comes naturally to you; if it's not the case, you can save the day by finding an already written Basketball College Essay example and using it as a model to follow.

This is when you will certainly find WowEssays' free samples database extremely useful as it includes numerous professionally written works on most various Basketball College Essays topics. Ideally, you should be able to find a piece that meets your criteria and use it as a template to develop your own College Essay. Alternatively, our qualified essay writers can deliver you an original Basketball College Essay model written from scratch according to your personal instructions.

Strategies In Sports Essay Example

Defensive Strategies Defensive strategies in soccer can be carried out as an individual player or as a team. Individual defensive strategies include man to man marking strategy. This occurs where individual players ensure that they have their opponent players “marked”; hence, not offering the opponents a chance to control the game and score goals. On the other hand, team defensive strategies in soccer are evident in cases where a team puts tremendous pressure on the opponents when they are in possession of the ball.

Offensive Strategies

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NARRATIVE ESSAY 2 Abstract A time that I overcame a great obstacle in my life was when I sprained my ankle in the summer of 2011. It happened while I was playing basketball at one of the most important games of the season. I sprained my ankle while playing the second last game of the regular season which is the game before the most important game. My team and I had a great chance of winning the game, and ultimately a perfect opportunity of winning the championship.

NARRATIVE ESSAY 3

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FIBA FIBA is an international organization that is bestowed with the responsibility of overseeing international basketball. FIBA sets the rules and regulation relating to international basketball events such as in world championships and the Olympics. This organization also regulates and monitors the transfer of players from one country to another as they are recruited in clubs such as in the NBA. FIBA is also responsible to overseeing basketball matches between different nations, and making sure that nations uphold a certain standard of basketball infrastructure and basketball finance management

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This essay is in response to Lamont Carey’s I Can’t Read. His lyrics are all about a young boy who is eleven years old who can’t write and read. However, his teacher is always passing him because he plays very well in basketball. Responses will be written based on the highlights of the lyrics to answer the lyrics’ issues.

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Question 1. Give the name of the film, producer and the year. The name of the chosen film is Hoop Dreams. It was produced in 1994 by Steve James, Peter Gilbert, and Frederick Marx.

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This is a ballad of the love between two people who never get the opportunity to actualize their relationship. Its theme is death both at a literal and symbolic level. Death is used as a metaphor of the demise of the stillborn romance between the soldier and Barbara Allen. The wall and the ringing death-bells epitomize the end of an unborn romance (Anon, 27).

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Author Interviews

A conversation with the author of 'there's always this year'.

NPR's Scott Detrow speaks to Hanif Abdurraqib about the new book There's Always This Year . It's a mix of memoir, essays, and poems, looking at the role basketball played in Abdurraqib's life.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

The new book "There's Always This Year" opens with an invitation. Here's a quote - "if you please imagine with me, you are putting your hand into my open palm, and I am resting one free hand atop yours. And I am saying to you that I would like to commiserate here and now about our enemies. We know our enemies by how foolishly they trample upon what we know as affection, how quickly they find another language for what they cannot translate as love." And what follows from that is a lyrical book about basketball but also about geography, luck, fate and many other things, too. It's also about how the career arc of basketball great LeBron James is woven through the life of the book's author, Hanif Abdurraqib, who joins us now. Welcome back to the show.

HANIF ABDURRAQIB: Thank you for having me again, Scott. It's really wonderful to be here.

DETROW: You know, I love this book so much, but I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. It's part memoir, part meditation, part poetry collection, part essay collection. How do you think about this book?

ABDURRAQIB: You know, it's funny. I've been running into that too early on in the process and now - still, when I'm asked to kind of give an elevator pitch. And I think really, if I'm being honest, that feels like an achievement to me because so much of...

DETROW: Yeah.

ABDURRAQIB: ...My intent with the book was working against a singular aboutness (ph) or positioning the book as something that could be operating against neat description because I think I was trying to tie together multiple ideas, sure, through the single - singular and single lens of basketball. But I kind of wanted to make basketball almost a - just a canvas atop which I was laying a lot of other concerns, be it mortality or place or fatherhood and sonhood (ph) in my case. I think mostly it's a book about mortality. It's a book about the passage of time and attempting to be honest with myself about the realities of time's passing.

DETROW: Yeah, it seems to me like it could also be a book about geography, about being shaped by the place you grew up in and that moment where you choose to stay or leave, or maybe leave and come back. And I was hoping you could read a passage that that deals directly with that for us.

ABDURRAQIB: Of course. Yeah. This is from the third quarter or the third act of the of the book.

(Reading) It bears mentioning that I come from a place people leave. Yes, when LeBron left, the reactions made enough sense to me, I suppose. But there was a part of me that felt entirely unsurprised. People leave this place. There are Midwestern states that are far less discernible on a blank map, sure. Even with an understanding of direction, I am known to mess up the order of the Dakotas. I've been known to point at a great many square-like landscapes while weakly mumbling Nebraska. And so I get it. We don't have it too bad. People at least claim to know that Ohio is shaped like a heart - a jagged heart, a heart with sharp edges, a heart as a weapon. That's why so many people make their way elsewhere.

DETROW: What does Ohio, and specifically, what does Columbus mean to you and who you are?

ABDURRAQIB: I think at this stage in my life, it's the one constant that keeps me tethered to a version of myself that is most recognizable. You know, you don't choose place. Place is something that happens to you. Place is maybe the second choice that is made for you after the choice of who your parents are. But if you have the means and ability, there are those of us who at some point in our lives get to choose a place back. And I think choosing that place back doesn't happen once. I mean, it happens several times. It's like any other relationship. You are choosing to love a place or a person as they are, and then checking in with if you are capable of continuing to love that place or person as they evolve, sometimes as they evolve without you or sometimes as you evolve without them. And so it's a real - a math problem that is always unfolding, someone asking the question of - what have I left behind in my growth, or what has left me behind in a growth that I don't recognize?

So, you know, Columbus doesn't look the way - just from an architectural standpoint - does not look the way it looked when I was young. It doesn't even look the way it looked when I moved back in 2017. And I have to kind of keep asking myself what I can live with. Now that, for me, often means that I turn more inward to the people. And I began to think of the people I love as their own architecture, a much more reliable and much more sturdy architecture than the architecture that is constantly under the siege of gentrification. And that has been grounding for me. It's been grounding for me to say, OK, I can't trust that this building will stay. I can't trust that this basketball court will stay. I can't trust that this mural or any of it will stay. But what I do know is that for now, in a corner of the city or in many corners of the city, there are people who know me in a very specific way, and we have a language that is only ours. And through that language, we render each other as full cities unto ourselves.

DETROW: Yeah. Can you tell me how you thought about basketball more broadly, and LeBron James specifically, weaving in and out of these big questions you're asking? - because in the first - I guess the second and third quarter, really, of the book - and I should say, you organize the book like a basketball game in quarters. You know, you're being really - you're writing these evocative, sad scenes of how, like you said, your life was not unfolding the way you wanted it in a variety of ways. And it's almost like LeBron James is kind of floating through as a specter on the TV screen in the background, keeping you company in a moment where it seems to me like you really needed company. Like, how did you think about your relationship with basketball and the broader moments and the broader thoughts in those moments?

ABDURRAQIB: Oh, man, that's not only such a good question, but that's actually - that's such a good image of LeBron James on the TV in the background because it was that. In a way, it was that in a very plainly material, realistic, literal sense because when I was, say, unhoused - right? - I...

ABDURRAQIB: ...Would kind of - you know, sometimes at night you kind of just wander. You find a place, and you walk through downtown. And I remember very clearly walking through downtown Columbus and just hearing the Cavs games blaring out of open doors to bars or restaurants and things like that, and not having - you know, I couldn't go in there because I had no money to buy anything, and I would eventually get thrown out of those places.

So, you know, I think playing and watching basketball - you know, even though this book is not, like, a heavy, in-depth basketball biography or a basketball memoir, I did spend a lot of time watching old - gosh, so much of the research for this book was me watching clips from the early - mid-2000s of...

ABDURRAQIB: ...LeBron James playing basketball because my headspace while living through that was entirely different. It's like you said, like LeBron was on a screen in the background of a life that was unsatisfying to me. So they were almost, like, being watched through static. And now when I watch them, the static clears, and they're a little bit more pleasureful (ph). And that was really joyful.

DETROW: LeBron James, of course, left the Cavs for a while. He took his talents to South Beach, went to the Miami Heat. You write - and I was a little surprised - that you have a really special place in your heart for, as you call them, the LeBronless (ph) years and the way that you...

ABDURRAQIB: Oh, yeah.

DETROW: ...Interacted with the team. What do you think that says? And why do you think you felt that way and feel that way about the LeBronless Cavs?

ABDURRAQIB: I - you know, I'm trying to think of a softer word than awful. But you know what? They were awful.

DETROW: (Laughter).

ABDURRAQIB: I mean they were (laughter) - but that did not stop them from playing this kind of strange level of hard, at times, because I think it hit a point, particularly in the late season, where it was clear they were giving in and tanking. But some of those guys were, like, old professionals. There's, like, an older Baron Davis on that team. You know, some of these guys, like, did not want to be embarrassed. And...

ABDURRAQIB: ...That, to me, was miraculous to watch where - because they're still professionals. They're still NBA players. And to know that these guys were playing on a team that just could not win games - they just didn't have the talent - but they individually did not want to - at least did not want to give up the appearance that they weren't fighting, there's something beautiful and romantic about that to me.

DETROW: It makes a lot of sense why you end the book around 2016 when the Cavs triumph and bring the championship to Cleveland. But when it comes to the passage of time - and I'll say I'm the exact same age as you, and we're both about the same age as LeBron. When it comes to the passage of time, how do you present-day feel about LeBron James watching the graying LeBron James who's paying so much attention to his lower back? - because I don't have anywhere near the intense relationship with him that you do. But, I mean, I remember reading that Sports Illustrated when it came out. I remember watching him in high school on ESPN, and I feel like going on this - my entire adult life journey with him. And I feel like weirdly protective of LeBron James now, right? Like, you be careful with him.

ABDURRAQIB: Yeah.

DETROW: And I'm wondering how you think about him today and what that leads your brain to, given this long, long, long relationship you have with him.

ABDURRAQIB: I find myself mostly anxious now about LeBron James, even though he is still - I think he's still playing at a high level. I mean, I - you know, I think that's not a controversial statement. But I - while he is still playing at a high level, I do - I'm like everyone else. So I'm kind of aware that it does seem like parts of him - or at least he's paying a bit more attention to the aches that just come with aging, right?

ABDURRAQIB: I have great empathy and sympathy for an athlete who's dedicated their life to a sport, who is maybe even aware that their skills are not what they once were, but still are playing because that's just what they've done. And they are...

ABDURRAQIB: ...In some cases, maybe still in pursuit of one more ring or one more legacy-building exploit that they can attach to their career before moving on to whatever is next. And so I don't know. And I don't think LeBron is at risk of a sharp and brutal decline, but I do worry a bit about him playing past his prime, only because I've never seen him be anything but miraculous on the court. And to witness that, I think, would be devastating in some ways.

And selfishly, I think it would signal some things to me personally about the limits of my own miracle making, not as a basketball player, of course, but as - you know, because a big conceit of the book is LeBron and I are similar in age, and we have - you know, around the same age and all this. And I think a deep flaw is that I've perhaps attached a part of his kind of miraculous playing beyond what people thought to my own idea about what miracle is as you age.

And so, you know, to be witness to a decline, a sharp decline would be fascinating and strange and a bit disorienting. But I hope it doesn't get there. You know, I hope - I would like to see him get one more ring. I don't know when it's going to come or how it's going to come, but I would like to see him get one more. I really would. My dream, selfishly, is that it happens again in Cleveland. He'll come back here and team up with, you know, some good young players and get one more ring for Cleveland because I think Cavs fans, you know, deserve that to the degree that anyone deserves anything in sports. That would be a great storybook ending.

DETROW: The last thing I want to ask about are these vignettes and poems that dot the book in praise of legendary Ohio aviators. Can you tell me what you were trying to do there? And then I'd love to end with you reading a few of them for me.

ABDURRAQIB: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked about that. I haven't gotten to talk about that as much, and that - those were the first things I wrote for the book. I wrote 30 of them...

DETROW: Really?

ABDURRAQIB: ...I think. And of course, they all didn't make it. But that was kind of an exercise, like a brain exercise. And I was trying to play with this idea of starting out with folks who were literally aviators. So it begins with John Glenn and Lonnie Carmen, and then working further and further away from aviation in a literal sense, much like the book is working further and further away from, say, basketball in this concrete sense - because ascension in my mind isn't just moving upward, it is expansion, too. It is, I think, any directional movement away from where your position is. And so I got to be kind of flexible with ideas of ascent and growth and moving upward.

DETROW: And the last aviator you did this for was you. And I'm hoping you can read what you wrote about yourself to end this.

ABDURRAQIB: Oh, gosh. OK, yeah. This is Hanif Abdurraqib, Columbus, Ohio, 1983 to present. (Reading) Never dies in his dreams. In his dreams, he is infinite, has wings, feathers that block the sun. And yet in the real living world, the kid has seen every apocalypse before it arrives, has been the architect of a few bad ones. Still wants to be alive most days. Been resurrected so many damn times, no one is surprised by the magic trick anymore.

DETROW: That's Hanif Abdurraqib, author of the new book "There's Always This Year: On Basketball And Ascension." Thank you so much.

ABDURRAQIB: Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FLEETWOOD MAC SONG, "ALBATROSS")

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That Horrible Essay That Got a UNC Jock an A-? Here’s the Real Story.

Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Last week, the Internet worked itself into a fit after ESPN aired a segment on the lingering scandal at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill over fake classes the school created for athletes to boost their GPAs. As with most viral stories, this one included a killer image: a camera shot of a 146-word, grammar-challenged final “essay” on Rosa Parks that, it seemed, had earned one lucky jock an A-.

Screenshot of ESPN.com

For those who would prefer not to squint, here’s the text.

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the  white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. “Let me have those front seats” said the driver. She didn’t get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. “I’m going to have you arrested,” said the driver. “You may do that,” Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them “why do you all push us around?” The police officer replied and said “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.

The picture seemed to distill the entire UNC scandal to a single block of text. It also seemed to stand for the idea that many big-time college athletes are utterly unprepared for college work and are never really given the education they are promised in return for their skills on the field. I posted my own quick take —as did a whole slew of other news sites .

The story behind the essay, however, was more complicated than we thought. According to ESPN’s source, what the network’s cameras captured was not a paper from one of UNC’s fake classes. Nor was it necessarily a finished piece of work. It was most likely a draft of one piece of a take-home final for a legitimate introductory course. The student did not earn the A- for the paper specifically, but for the entire, completed class.

So instead of evidence of specific academic corruption, the image merely seems to be visual proof that UNC admitted athletes with grade-school-level writing skills and awarded them high marks.

In its feature, ESPN interviewed Mary Willingham, the UNC learning-specialist-turned-whistleblower who exposed the fake courses issue to the public. “I became aware of this paper class system, that students were taking classes that didn’t really exist,” Willingham told the cameras. “They were called independent studies at that time and they just had to write a paper.” Students, she noted, were not required to actually attend any classes.

Later in the feature, former UNC football player Deunta Williams explained that he believed the coaches were in on the scam. At that point, ESPN cut back to Willingham holding the now notorious paragraph. Here’s a transcript (the section starts at around 3 minutes ).

Williams: I think the coaches knew enough to understand what was going on. I think they knew about the system itself. And if a guy was in trouble, the immediate response was why not put him in a paper class where he can receive help. Get an A or a B out of this class for writing a good paper.

[Camera cuts to Willingham holding out the one-paragraph paper]

Willingham: This is not even close to college work, yet this athlete was awarded an A-.

Though Willingham never explicitly says so, ESPN’s editing seemed to create the impression that the paper in question was actually from one of the fake courses. But after the essay began making the rounds on Twitter, Willingham clarified that was not the case.

After updating my story (and receiving more than one piece of angry email from UNC fans about my initial post), I contacted Willingham to get more details about the essay’s origins. Willingham told me that ESPN had asked her to show them some of the hundreds of writing samples she keeps on file from the athletes she worked with at UNC; she retrieved a pile of them. The Rosa Parks essay, which happened to be on top, was just one typical example of what students regularly showed her. She said she never told ESPN that it was from one of the fake courses.

Online commenters have noted that AFAM 41—the class name listed at the top of the essay— was a legitimate intro course in the African American studies department and would have required more than a single-paragraph essay to complete. Willingham said that was correct. She also told me that the paragraph was “probably part of a larger [take-home] test,” but that since she did not have a course syllabus, she could not say for sure.

Willingham also confirmed the paper was a draft, though she could not say what sort of edits the student might have made. When it came to graded assignments, she said, she personally could only offer general guidance to students and would not have gone and rewritten the essay herself. Willingham said that although she did not know what grade the student-athlete received on his final, she did know his class grade, because as a learning specialist, she was involved in clearing him for NCAA compliance.

“It’s an original document from an athlete for an essay—for a final. That’s all I know,” she told me, later adding, “That is the grade level the person was writing at. That’s the point.”

And that is a fairly powerful point. Perhaps this student had excellent class participation, or did well on a multiple-choice exam—we don’t know. But if Willingham is showing a legitimate sample of an athlete’s work, it suggests a student was awarded an A- in a college course despite only being able to write with grade-school aptitude. That is a scandal.

Since the details of this story have become more clear, I’ve been debating whether this was another example of a viral nugget being “too good to check.” And to some degree it was. On the one hand, ESPN, possibly through an accident of editing, seemed to imply that this essay was from one of the fake courses its segment focused on. On the other, the segment never explicitly stated that was the case. Web writers, myself included, did ultimately jump to conclusions based on that impression, rather than on hard, verified details. In the end, though, I don’t think the details change much of what this image stands for: a student-athlete who could not possibly have been receiving the education he came for.

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The Caitlin Clark Show Rolls On

While off-the-court drama has raged in the women’s tournament, Clark and Iowa dispatched with their foils from last season en route to the Final Four.

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have done little but shower each other with admiration throughout the tournament — for their games and their competitiveness. Credit... Andy Lyons/Getty Images

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By Billy Witz

Billy Witz reported from the women’s N.C.A.A. tournament in Albany, N.Y.

• Published April 2, 2024 Updated April 3, 2024, 6:13 p.m. ET

One way to view the meteoric growth of women’s college basketball is through the career arc of its current protagonist: Caitlin Clark , the University of Iowa’s stone-cold mad bomber.

Her first college game came in an eerily quiet setting: no fans, players spaced out on bleachers and some wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus. Eventually that season, the atmosphere livened up with cardboard cutouts in the seats.

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Her last game will come this weekend in an altogether different environment: a packed-to-the-rafters arena in Cleveland that will roar with her every touch, untold millions tuning in on television and Clark as a million-dollar pitch woman starring in national commercials.

Clark’s chase for the only real achievement that has eluded her — a national championship — continued Monday night. It did so in poetic fashion, at the expense of the antagonist who has ridden shotgun with her across a national stage for the last year: Louisiana State’s Angel Reese, her unapologetic, trash-talking nemesis.

The early rematch of last year’s national championship game ended fittingly, with the ball in Clark’s hands as she dribbled out the final seconds of Iowa’s 94-87 regional final victory over L.S.U. that was covered, as usual, in her fingerprints.

If Clark exceeded her own standards — with 41 points, 12 assists and 7 rebounds — so, too, did the game, which was free of jawing, dismissive gestures and score settling.

It was just basketball.

When it was over, Clark was embraced in the handshake line by Reese, who had a succinct message for Clark after losing to her for the first time in five meetings.

“Go win it,” Reese said.

The sequel, for all its punches and counterpunches, Iowa’s long-distance bombs and L.S.U.’s relentless rebounding, is unlikely to have the lingering impact of the original.

Last year’s title game drew a record 9.9 million viewers , but it was also on network television for the first time since 1995. And the suggestion that this matchup will do for women’s basketball what Larry Bird and Magic Johnson playing for the N.C.A.A. championship in 1979 did for the men’s game is predicated on Clark and Reese becoming superstars in the W.N.B.A., which is hardly assured.

But they brought familiar contrasts to the stage: strength vs., finesse, inside vs. outside, sharp-tongued vs. prosaic, and, of course, Black vs. white.

The most enduring gift of their two-act performance may be that, perhaps for the first time, the leading characters are not the outsize coaching figures — Pat Summitt, Geno Auriemma, Tara VanDerveer and Dawn Staley — but the players themselves.

“There wasn’t a lot of the back-and-forth-between-the-players kind of juice,” Rebecca Lobo, the former Connecticut star turned broadcaster, said of her school’s decades-long rivalry with Tennessee. “And there wasn’t all the stuff around the game.”

She said of Iowa and L.S.U.: “If you want to love either team, you can find plenty of reasons to love them. If you want to hate either team, you can find plenty of reasons for that too.”

Signs of what the sport has become were omnipresent over the last four days in Albany: boisterous crowds, booming television audiences and big, sometimes polarizing personalities that are taking the sport to new places — some of them uncomfortable.

At times, the taut drama on the court was subsumed by the spectacle off it.

Coach Kim Mulkey of L.S.U., a week after threatening a lawsuit against The Washington Post for a since-published profile of her, called out a Los Angeles Times column as sexist and racist.

Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame’s star freshman, missed four minutes of her team’s narrow loss to Oregon State while officials made her remove a nose ring, creating another stir.

And Reese riled up the U.C.L.A. coach, Cori Close, after taunting the Bruins’ bench when she fouled out in the final seconds of L.S.U.’s comeback win — the latest example of Reese’s behavior raising questions about the line between sportsmanship and showmanship.

“It bothered me,” said Close, who unsuccessfully pleaded for a technical foul. “Everybody saw it but the officials. She’s a great player and has done a lot for the game. I’m never going to criticize another player. I’ll just say we want to be an example of how you handle yourself when you win and when you lose.”

Reese offered no apology.

“It’s just a super competitive game,” Reese said on Sunday ahead of the rematch with Iowa. “I just wish people would realize that. Once I get between those lines, there’s no friends.”

She added: “I’ll take the villain role. I’ll take the hit for it. But I know we’re growing women’s basketball. If this is the way we’re going to do it, then this is the way we’re going to do it. You either like it or you don’t.”

On Monday night, her teammates Flau’jae Johnson and Hailey Van Lith spoke passionately and tearfully about their star.

“The crown she wears is heavy,” Johnson said.

So much of what happened over the weekend entered the terrain of gender — as happened again Sunday night with echoes of a familiar battle for women’s basketball: the belated discovery that the 3-point lines at the other regional site in Portland, Ore., were at different distances .

“Well, I hate to say this, but I have a lot of colleagues that would say, ‘Only in women’s basketball,’” said Vic Schaefer, the Texas coach, referring to the longstanding inequities between men’s and women’s basketball , which were laid bare in a video of the spartan women’s weight room at the 2021 N.C.A.A. tournament.

The reaction to that video spurred outrage and eventual action by the N.C.A.A. to address some of the systemic inequalities.

And much as Clark, with her spectacular shotmaking, has redefined the boundaries for how women can play the game, Reese has forced a re-examination of the standards to which Black athletes and women are held.

“I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in,” she said after last year’s championship game . “I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. But when other people do it, y’all say nothing.”

Her point that night was that her trash-talking and taunting — directed at Clark — were no different than Clark’s at the end of a regional final victory over Louisville. Or in last year’s semifinal, when, with the wave of her hand, she dared the South Carolina point guard Raven Johnson to shoot.

Johnson took that gesture personally, along with the social media criticism that followed that defeat — South Carolina’s only loss of last season.

“I want to cry because every time I talk about it, it hits me so hard,” Johnson said Friday after burying a late 3-pointer to stave off Indiana. “I’m showing people that you can’t sag off me this year.”

Over the weekend, as they have in the last year, Clark and Reese did little but shower each other with admiration — for their games and their competitiveness.

What Clark seemed reluctant to do was engage in any discussion of how race influences the conversation around her and Reese.

“I think people celebrate us the same,” Clark said. “I think people absolutely love Angel; I think people absolutely love me. And that’s how it should be.”

On Monday night, Clark allowed herself one chest thump, after she sank the last of her nine 3-pointers to put Iowa ahead by 11 midway through the final quarter. Her coach, Lisa Bluder, was pleased by her composure.

“Really, it could have been a highly emotional game,” Bluder said. “It could have been a lot of talking going on out there from what happened at the end of last year. Honestly, she put it aside.”

Perhaps Clark’s neatest trick, with the help of Reese, was relegating top-ranked South Carolina, which grinded out wins over Indiana and Oregon State to quietly reach its fourth consecutive Final Four, to the undercard.

When Staley, their coach, was asked why the Gamecocks — who are 36-0 with an entirely new starting lineup and are 107-3 over the last three seasons — haven’t gotten more attention, she laughed.

“I don’t know, but I like it,” she said. “Go ahead, take the spotlight. Put it somewhere else.”

She is likely to get her wish. On Friday in Cleveland, South Carolina plays its cross-border neighbor, North Carolina State, in the first game of the night. The main event will be reserved for Iowa and Connecticut and its star, Paige Bueckers.

“Hopefully, at the end of the day, next week this time,” Staley said Sunday. “I’m hoping that we give a lot of people a lot to talk about.”

Read by Billy Witz

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst .

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Commentary: UCLA-LSU is America’s sweethearts vs. its basketball villains

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Editor’s Note: The original version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been edited to remove language that was inappropriate and offensive. We apologize to the LSU basketball program and to our readers. On Monday, Ben Bolch offered an apology, which is appended to the bottom of this commentary.

ALBANY, N.Y. — This isn’t just a basketball game, it’s a reckoning. Picking sides goes well beyond school allegiance.

10:10 p.m. March 30, 2024 A previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been updated.

Do you prefer the team that wants to grow women’s basketball or the one seemingly hellbent on dividing it?

The coach who embraces reporters or the one who attacks them?

When UCLA plays defending national champion Louisiana State on Saturday at MVP Arena in the Sweet 16 of the Albany 2 Regional, the contrasts don’t stop with blue and purple.

Some might see this as inclusive versus divisive.

There’s little debate as to which side of the ledger Tigers coach Kim Mulkey falls on. Long after she reportedly failed to support Brittney Griner , in essence telling her gay star to keep her sexual orientation to herself, Mulkey has stumbled again in the wake of an imminent Washington Post profile on the veteran coach.

Last week, Mulkey threatened to sue the newspaper without knowing the contents of the story, labeling it a “hit piece.” Without naming the reporter, she described the Post’s Kent Babb as “sleazy.” She slammed the paper for giving her a deadline to respond to questions while also disclosing that she had refused requests going back two years to sit for an interview.

In doing so, Mulkey turned a non-story into a blockbuster. How many more readers will that Post story get as a result of her grandstanding?

Just as befuddling, Mulkey sidestepped the issue Friday, refusing to address the story she created. The first two questions Mulkey fielded at her media session involved the Post story. The coach dropped the ball each time.

UCLA Sports

Prattle of sexes: How trash-talking men helped UCLA women reach the Sweet 16

UCLA relies on talented male scout team players to help the Bruins prepare for opponents and fuel their NCAA tournament run.

March 28, 2024

Reporter: “What’s it been like kind of waiting for that story to come out?”

Mulkey: “I did make a statement, and that’s all I’ll comment on at this time because all I am focused on is to try and win another basketball game. Thank you for asking, though.”

Reporter: “Not to belabor the point, but from what you have been told or what you have been asked ... ”

Mulkey: “I’m only here today to talk about the next game.”

How convenient for someone who couldn’t stop talking about the story less than a week ago. She’s only mum when it suits her.

Mulkey’s best player also can’t get out of her own way. A year after she taunted Caitlin Clark by giving the Iowa superstar the ring finger and mocking Clark’s hand-waving gesture late in the national championship game, Angel Reese is at it again. When Middle Tennessee’s Anastasiia Boldyreva fouled out of a second-round loss to LSU, Reese waved goodbye as a crying Boldyreva headed to the bench.

The wave led to significant blowback on social media, sparking a virtual shrug from Reese.

“clickbait everything i do keep going viral,” Reese posted to the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, after the game.

“clickbait everything i do keep going viral” — Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) March 24, 2024

Then there’s UCLA, which operates in the saintly shadows while being as wholesome as a miniature stuffed Bruin mascot. UCLA coach Cori Close gives reporters unfettered access to players and practices, repeatedly thanking them for trumpeting the emergence of the women’s game.

She’s unfailingly cheery, loudly announcing her presence early Friday morning after the team’s flight was delayed by 2½ hours and arrived close to midnight.

“Coach is here!” Close said joyfully in a corridor outside the interview area.

Her players reflect her sunny disposition while being as controversial as a pledge drive for underprivileged children.

“She’s a little bit cornier than us,” senior guard Charisma Osborne said, “but yeah, I think she really sets the standard.”

So, maybe they really are America’s sweethearts?

“Sure, I kind of like that,” star forward Lauren Betts said.

Said Osborne: “I like it too!”

Added Betts: “But don’t get it twisted — we’re not sweethearts on the court. It doesn’t mean we’re soft.”

Kiki Rice’s scoring flurry rallies UCLA past Creighton and into the Sweet 16

Kiki Rice finishes with 24 points and Lauren Betts scores 20 as UCLA rallies to defeat Creighton and set up a showdown with LSU in the NCAA tournament.

March 25, 2024

They also won’t give in to easy narratives. Betts and Osborne disputed the notion that Reese lacked class, and they should know — they played with her for Team USA last summer.

“She’s an amazing teammate and I really enjoyed playing with her,” Betts said. “I think she’s an amazing person and obviously when it comes to basketball you’re trying to win, so it’s like, whatever you have to do to win, I don’t think that people should judge her for that.”

Said Osborne: “She’s really nice off the court as well and people don’t always see that.”

Everyone can see for themselves Saturday. How will the nation’s most polarizing team conduct itself versus the one known for its class? The reckoning is here.

Ben Bolch’s apology:

It has taken me two days to write this apology because I wanted to be as thoughtful as possible in my response to the situation I have created. These are words I have not been asked to write by anyone at my paper, but they need to be expressed so that I can own up to my mistake.

Words matter. As a journalist, no one should know this more than me. Yet I have failed miserably in my choice of words. In my column previewing the LSU-UCLA women’s basketball game, I tried to be clever in my phrasing about one team’s attitude, using alliteration while not understanding the deeply offensive connotation or associations. I also used metaphors that were not appropriate. Our society has had to deal with so many layers of misogyny, racism and negativity that I can now see why the words I used were wrong. It was not my intent to be hurtful, but I now understand that I terribly missed the mark.

I sincerely apologize to the LSU and UCLA basketball teams and to our readers. UCLA, a school I have covered for nearly a decade, champions diversity and is known as a leader in inclusivity. However, I have not upheld that standard in what I wrote and I will do much better. I am deeply sorry.

— Ben Bolch

More to Read

Granderson: Caitlin Clark is having a moment in women’s basketball. She shouldn’t be the only one

April 1, 2024

UCLA vows to turn disappointment into an elusive Final Four run next season

March 31, 2024

UCLA women falter at the finish in NCAA tournament loss to LSU

March 30, 2024

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Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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