Number Of Steals Research Articles

Dynamic visual attention characteristics and their relationship to match performance in skilled basketball players.

BackgroundDynamic visual attention is important in basketball because it may affect the performance of players and thus the match outcome. The goals of this study were to investigate the difference in dynamic visual attention characteristics between highly skilled basketball players and nonathletic college students and to explore the relationship between visual attention and game-related performance among the basketball players.MethodsIn total, 24 highly skilled basketball players and 24 nonathletic college students participated in a multiple object tracking task. The task was conducted so that either the number of targets that were visually tracked or the speed at which a given number of tracked targets moved was altered to examine the difference in dynamic visual attention characteristics between the basketball players and nonathletic college students. The relationship between visual tracking speed (VTS) and game-related statistics, including assists, steals, mistakes, fouls and points scored recorded for every match during the season, was assessed among the basketball players by using Pearson correlations.ResultsA significant main effect of target tracking load was observed (P < 0.001), with visual tracking performance significantly decreased as target number increased. In addition, the speed at which the targets moved had a significant effect on visual tracking performance (P < 0.001), with tracking performance significantly decreased as target speed increased. However, no significant difference was observed in the abilities of basketball players and nonathletic college students to simultaneously track up to six targets. By contrast, a significant interaction between group and target speed was found (P < 0.001), with the visual tracking accuracy of basketball players significantly greater than that of college students at the higher target speeds examined (P < 0.001). Among basketball players, there were positive, large, and statistically significant correlations in the accuracy in VTS trials and the number of assists (P < 0.001) and between the accuracy in VTS trials and the number of steals (P < 0.001).ConclusionThe advantage of skilled basketball players to handle dynamic visual information in a multiple object tracking task was not attributable to the target number but to the target speed. Those athletes with greater dynamic visual attention were more likely to successfully assist or to steal the ball, enhancing performance of the athlete as well as contributing to a more successful team match. These findings may inform basketball training programs to improve player and team performances during matches.

Train Smarter, Play More: Insights About Preparation and Game Participation in Youth National Team

ABSTRACT Purpose: The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between physical preparation, training sessions (TS) and friendly matches’ (FM) demands, and playing status during European Championship (EC). Method: Twelve under-16 (U-16) basketball players performed physical (jumping, agility, aerobic fitness, and lower limb asymmetry index [ASI]) tests prior to attending the national team training camp. External training load was assessed using the WIMU PRO System put in place during TS (n = 19) and FM (n = 3), integrating the national team preparation. Perceptual response (RPE), muscle soreness (DOMS), and game-related statistics were also collected. Playing status during the U-16 EC (starters vs nonstarters) were taken into consideration to analyze the between-subjects differences across all variables. A stepwise discriminant analysis was computed to identify the construct that best differentiated the players’ playing status (starters vs nonstarters) during the EC. Results: The starters were characterized by lower movement demands in both TS (ES: −0.02 to −1.26) and FM (ES: −0.03 to −1.94), however, outscored nonstarters in most FM-related statistics (ES: 0.10 to 3.62), with exception to blocks and rebounds. The number of high-intensity decelerations during FM (p ≤ .05), but also training DOMS, number of steals, efficiency, minutes during FM, and countermovement jump (CMJ) (p ≤ .01) substantially discriminated the playing status over the course of the EC. Conclusion: Game-related statistics obtained in FM seem to be a determinant aspect that increases the probability to be the starter during the EC.

Offensive and Defensive Play in Handball in a 2-Year World Championship Cycle: Characteristics and Tendencies

Abstract Introduction. The analysis of players’ performance with respect to technical-tactical actions is becoming a key factor influencing the focus of training programmes and the contents of training units. It also provides important information which can be used to improve players’ efficiency during the game. The aim of the current study was to analyse the efficiency of technicaltactical offensive actions in positional attack as well as defensive actions performed by handball players participating in two consecutive World Men’s Handball Championships, held in Spain in 2013 and in Qatar in 2015. Material and methods. The material subjected to analysis was data describing the technical-tactical actions performed during the World Championships in Spain in 2013 and in Qatar in 2015. We analysed offensive and defensive actions, including with regard to the continent the teams represented. We performed an analysis of the documents available on the IHF website. The significance of the differences found was verified using analysis of variance (ANOVA and MANOVA). Results. The study found a significantly lower number of offensive actions in positional attack (−7.5%) and turnovers (−26.4%), higher overall efficiency (+7.2%), as well as higher efficiency of 6-m shots (+9.5%), wing shots (+7.3%), and breakthrough shots (+11.4%) at the World Championship in Qatar compared to tournament in Spain. When it comes to defensive actions, there was a significantly higher number of 2-minute suspensions (+27.5%), with a simultaneous significant reduction in the number of steals (−55.7%) and shots defended (−13.3%). Conclusions. During a two-year cycle, there was a change in the concept of playing in positional attack. In 2015, there was a significantly greater number of actions leading to a shot in the region of the opponent’s goal area as well as a higher level of activity and more aggressive play on the part of defensive players. In addition, European teams had gained an advantage over teams from other continents in terms of the efficiency of the technical-tactical actions undertaken.

A Java Task Pool Framework providing Fault-Tolerant Global Load Balancing

Fault tolerance is gaining importance in parallel computing, especially on large clusters. Traditional approaches handle the issue on system-level. Application-level approaches are becoming increasingly popular, since they may be more efficient. This paper presents a fault-tolerant work stealing technique on application level, and describes its implementation in a generic reusable task pool framework for Java. When using this framework, programmers can focus on writing sequential code to solve their actual problem. The framework is written in Java and utilizes the APGAS library for parallel programming. It implements a comparatively simple algorithm that relies on a resilient data structure for storing backups of local pools and other information. Our implementation uses Hazelcast's IMap for this purpose, which is an automatically distributed and fault-tolerant key-value store.?The number of backup copies is configurable and determines how many simultaneous failures can be tolerated. Our algorithm is shown to be correct in the sense that failures are either tolerated and the computed result is the same as in non-failure case, or the program aborts with an error message. Experiments were conducted with the UTS, NQueens and BC benchmarks on up to 144 workers. First, we compared the performance of our framework with that of a non-fault-tolerant variant during failure-free operation. Depending on the parameter settings, the overhead was at most 46.06%. The particular value tended to increase with the number of steals. Second, we compared our framework's performance with that of a related, but less flexible fault-tolerant X10 framework. Here, we did not observe a clear winner. Finally, we measured the overheads for restoring a failed worker and for raising the number of backup copies from one to six, and found both to be negligible.

Epidemiology and Impact on Performance of Lower Extremity Stress Injuries in Professional Basketball Players.

Background:Professional basketball players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) subject their lower extremities to significant repetitive loading during both regular-season and off-season training. Little is known about the incidence of lower extremity bony stress injuries and their impact on return to play and performance in these athletes.Hypothesis:Stress injuries of the lower extremity will have significant impact on performance.Study Design:Case series.Level of Evidence:Level 4.Methods:All bony stress injuries from 2005 to 2015 were identified from the NBA. Number of games missed due to injury and performance statistics were collected from 2 years prior to injury to 2 years after the injury. A linear regression analysis was performed to determine the impact of injury for players who returned to sport.Results:A total of 76 lower extremity bony stress injuries involving 75 NBA players (mean age, 25.4 ± 4.1 years) were identified. Fifty-five percent (42/76) involved the foot, and most injuries occurred during the regular season (82.9%, 63/76), with half occurring within the first 6 weeks. Among players who sustained a fifth metatarsal stress fracture, 42.9% were unable to return to professional play. Players who sustained stress injuries had reduced play performance, specifically related to number of games played (P = 0.014) and number of steals per game (P = 0.004). Players who had surgery had significantly better performance at 2 years than those who were managed nonoperatively, independent of the type of injury (β = 4.561; 95% CI, 1.255-7.868).Conclusion:Lower extremity bony stress injuries may significantly affect both short- and long-term player performance and career length. Stress injuries result in decreased player performance, and surgical intervention results in improved performance metrics compared with those treated using conservative methods.Clinical Relevance:Stress injuries result in decreased player performance, and surgical intervention results in improved performance metrics.

Upper Bounds on Number of Steals in Rooted Trees

Inspired by applications in parallel computing, we analyze the setting of work stealing in multithreaded computations. We obtain tight upper bounds on the number of steals when the computation can be modeled by rooted trees. In particular, we show that if the computation with n processors starts with one processor having a complete k-ary tree of height h (and the remaining n − 1 processors having nothing), the maximum possible number of steals is \({\sum }_{i=1}^{n}(k-1)^{i}\binom {h}{i}\).

Parâmetros antropométricos e indicadores de desempenho em atletas da seleção brasileira feminina de basquetebol

The aim of the present study was to investigate the correlation between anthropometric parameters (weight, height, body fat, BMI) and performance indicators (playing time, points, rebounds, errors, steals) in female national basketball players. The study was conducted during the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. Data were analyzed by ANOVA with random effects. Pearson’s simple correlation coefficients were also determined. No difference in anthropometric profile or performance indicators was observed between the two national teams (2000 and 2004). There was a significant correlation (r = 0.61, p&lt;0.05) between height and number of rebounds. Free fat mass was also correlated with the number of rebounds performed (r = 0.45, p&lt;0.05). BMI showed moderate correlations with playing time (r = -0.51, p&lt;0.05), points scored (r = -0.50, p&lt;0.05), number of errors (r = 0.53, p&lt;0.05), and number of steals (r = -0.43, p&lt;0.05). A similar pattern of correlation was observed between relative fat mass (%) and performance indicators (playing time: -0.51, points scored: -0.44, errors: 0.50, and steals: 0.51) (p&lt;0.05). The present results indicate a relationship between anthropometric profile and performance indicators. The results also suggest that height and free fat mass influence rebound performance. In addition, it is reasonable to assume that body fat interferes with most of the performance indicators analyzed.

Monitoramento da carga interna no basquetebol.

The aim of this study was to quantify the magnitude of the internal load induced by an official women’s basketball match and to determine whether the magnitude of the internal load is correlated with the number of basketball maneuvers perfomed. The sample consisted of 10 athletes (25 ± 4 years), who participated in the XI Brazilian Women’s Basketball Championship. Heart rate and rating of perceived exertion in response to the match were evaluated. The internal load was calculated by the methods of Edwards and Foster. In addition, the basketball maneuvers perfomed in the match were analyzed. The internal load estimated by the methods of Edwards and Foster was 255 ± 62 and 321 ± 127 arbitrary units, respectively. A moderate correlation was observed between the two methods used (r = 0.64, p &lt;0.05). In addition, significant correlations (p &lt;0.05) were observed between internal load estimated by the method of Edwards and the number of points scored in the match (r = 0.53), number of rebounds (r = 0.67), number of assists (r = 0.59), number of steals (r = 0.70), and the sum of all indicators (r = 0.64). The results of this study suggest that the internal load of the match was moderate and was influenced by the number of maneuvers performed by the athletes in the match.

The Basketball Concentration Survey: Preliminary Development and Validation

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a sport-specific version of Nideffer’s (1976a) Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS), specifically in regard to the sport of basketball. Collegiate basketball players (N = 43) participated in the research, 20 males and 23 females. The subjects were administered two instruments, the original TAIS and the Basketball Concentration Survey (BCS). The items contained in the BCS were a conversion of the 59 pertinent items contained in the original. The instruments were administered early in the season and the results were correlated with nine seasonal performance variables ranging from field-goal percentage to total number of steals. The results show the BCS to have significant reliability as well as significantly accounting for performance variability. The BCS had highly significant correlations with seven of the nine performance variables.