Sports Basics Part 2: Basketball for Girls Trying to Impress their Men
Welcome back ladies to part 2 of my three part series. This post is dedicated to making my favorite sport easy to understand. Basketball is actually one of the easiest sports to understand. There are five players on the court at one time for each team. In college basketball the game is played in two 20 minutes halves, while in the NBA it is played in four 12 minute quarters. Also another difference between college basketball and the NBA is the shot clock. The shot clock tells you how long each team has to shoot the ball. In college each team has 35 seconds on the shot clock, while in the NBA the shot clock is 24 seconds.
More about the actual game of basketball, defensively there are two main types zone and man to man. The way the zone defense works is that instead of guarding a single player, the defense guards an area and as the ball moves around the defense moves as a unit to close the holes. A zone defense is usually better for stopping teams who are better post up teams, meaning teams that have players who go to basket to shoot. Using a zone defense usually forces teams to take outside shots unless a team is good enough to penetrate on a dribble drive. The other main type of defense is a man, where you guard a specific player and keep up with them at all times. A man defense is best when there are specific players that you want to guard and keep from shooting the ball. The major drawback to a man defense is that there is the possibility of allowing holes to be created in the defense and if the offense has players who can shoot outside shots or get in for a layup or even a dunk. Personally my favorite defense is a mix of zone and man because it allows for a team to guard specific players but to also cover the holes.
Offensively the game is based on the defense, so teams have to be able to read the defense to see how to move offensively. Good teams know how to exploit the weaknesses of the other team. Ladies a helpful tip if you see teams taking good outside shots or penetrating to the rim, these teams are beating the defense and exposing the weakness of the other team.
Now to the tips, sorry for the long explanation of the game of basketball but I hope it does help you all to understand how the game is played in an easy way. I cannot reiterate the beauty of the recap of a game. This is your biggest friend, especially for basketball games. The recap tends to give you the points of the highest scorers and the rest of their stats. Guys love it when you can recite stats, it makes you sound so much more knowledgable then you really are about the sport. Another beautiful thing about the recap on ESPN is that there is usually a link to the highlights; the highlights will give you key talking points if you happen to get onto the subject of the game. Men will be really impressed if you were able to catch the best plays of the game and talk to them about it.
A good tip if your man is a big fan of college basketball is read a couple articles from Andy Katz on ESPN. He is the leading columnest when it comes to college basketball. His articles discuss the current news and he also goes into bracketology, which is how March Madness is designed, also he discusses how he thinks the weekly rankings should have gone. He also has a twitter ESPNAndyKatz and I would suggest to follow him because he gives updates on his twitter and he discusses the biggest college games of the week every day on his account. He is like the Bill Simmons of college.
Again love Bill Simmons, he is the sports guy and he loves the NBA. He writes about the NBA when it comes time for basketball season. He also has a twitter Sportsguy33, follow him, he is entertaining and he discusses all of the major sports through out his tweets.
I hope that you ladies find this post helpful and keep following my love affair with sports.
More about the actual game of basketball, defensively there are two main types zone and man to man. The way the zone defense works is that instead of guarding a single player, the defense guards an area and as the ball moves around the defense moves as a unit to close the holes. A zone defense is usually better for stopping teams who are better post up teams, meaning teams that have players who go to basket to shoot. Using a zone defense usually forces teams to take outside shots unless a team is good enough to penetrate on a dribble drive. The other main type of defense is a man, where you guard a specific player and keep up with them at all times. A man defense is best when there are specific players that you want to guard and keep from shooting the ball. The major drawback to a man defense is that there is the possibility of allowing holes to be created in the defense and if the offense has players who can shoot outside shots or get in for a layup or even a dunk. Personally my favorite defense is a mix of zone and man because it allows for a team to guard specific players but to also cover the holes.
Offensively the game is based on the defense, so teams have to be able to read the defense to see how to move offensively. Good teams know how to exploit the weaknesses of the other team. Ladies a helpful tip if you see teams taking good outside shots or penetrating to the rim, these teams are beating the defense and exposing the weakness of the other team.
Now to the tips, sorry for the long explanation of the game of basketball but I hope it does help you all to understand how the game is played in an easy way. I cannot reiterate the beauty of the recap of a game. This is your biggest friend, especially for basketball games. The recap tends to give you the points of the highest scorers and the rest of their stats. Guys love it when you can recite stats, it makes you sound so much more knowledgable then you really are about the sport. Another beautiful thing about the recap on ESPN is that there is usually a link to the highlights; the highlights will give you key talking points if you happen to get onto the subject of the game. Men will be really impressed if you were able to catch the best plays of the game and talk to them about it.
A good tip if your man is a big fan of college basketball is read a couple articles from Andy Katz on ESPN. He is the leading columnest when it comes to college basketball. His articles discuss the current news and he also goes into bracketology, which is how March Madness is designed, also he discusses how he thinks the weekly rankings should have gone. He also has a twitter ESPNAndyKatz and I would suggest to follow him because he gives updates on his twitter and he discusses the biggest college games of the week every day on his account. He is like the Bill Simmons of college.
Again love Bill Simmons, he is the sports guy and he loves the NBA. He writes about the NBA when it comes time for basketball season. He also has a twitter Sportsguy33, follow him, he is entertaining and he discusses all of the major sports through out his tweets.
I hope that you ladies find this post helpful and keep following my love affair with sports.
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