blynd_freddie
12 Jun 2008, 23:08
An interesting subject and well worth revisiting. This article from last year Link (http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/taking-the-alleyoop-to-footballs-elite/2007/06/09/1181089394231.html)
WHEN Scott Pendlebury goes dancing in and out of traffic in his Collingwood guernsey on a weekend, he could just as easily be running the point-guard spot for Australia at the Youth Olympics, which is precisely what he was doing a couple of years ago.The same goes for Jason Gram and Nick Dal Santo, St Kilda's dexterous pair. When a stationary Dal Santo flicked the ball to Gram at the 50-metre line against Geelong last Sunday, allowing Gram to bomb a long goal, they could just as easily have been playing basketball and setting up a three-point shot.
No surprise there, since Dal Santo played representative basketball in Bendigo and Gram did the same in Gippsland as a boy.
Basketballers have been flourishing in the AFL for a long time but as the trends of the modern game push more players into the same patch of space for more of the time, the connection only seems to grow. Pendlebury, who quit a burgeoning career in basketball to join his mates at the Gippsland Power, is merely the latest example. Nor is he alone. At the end of last year, Adelaide drafted a 201-centimetre boy, Kurt Tippett, who had previously played basketball for Queensland's under-18 team and hardly kicked a football in anger. Then there are the established basketballer-footballers, such as the Western Bulldogs' Scott West and Melbourne's Russell Robertson, and the coaches who played, such as Paul Roos and Terry Wallace, both state-level basketballers.
Pendlebury is winning rave reviews in only his second season for poise under pressure. "What Pendlebury's got is vision," says Tony Shaw, another of the devotees to the round-ball game. Shaw played for Coburg Giants and won a national championship many years ago. "His lateral movement is like you do to go out wide in basketball. It's like going into the low post and you move out to receive the ball. The other thing is reaction. The smaller players like Terry Wallace and Scott West, they've got urgency. In basketball, you have that non-stop."
When Shaw was coaching Collingwood some years ago, he made sure the Magpies entered two teams in a local competition at Nunawading. It had a purpose.
"When those guys came down, they couldn't even bounce the ball without looking at it," he recalls. "They kept running into each other because they couldn't look up. But by the end, their co-ordination was much better. Basketball is sensational for football. I've always believed that."
David Schwarz thinks along similar lines. When Schwarz sees Pendlebury and West working in the maelstrom of the midfield, he knows where they got their vision and creativity and speed. Schwarz, of course, played basketball for Sunbury Jets in the Continental Basketball Association as a teenager.
"Pendlebury's a freak. He sees things unfold before they actually do," says Schwarz.
"Whether that's just natural ability or it's the basketball, I don't know. In basketball, you have to have an element of surprise. You're in the same space. In footy, there's more luck involved with the bounce of the ball, the wind and whatever. In basketball, it's constant and you're looking for something, the alley-oop, the bounce between the legs, the no-look pass. Basketballers are more creative than what the footballers are."
Clubs noticed all of this a long time ago. Veteran St Kilda recruiter John Beveridge says it is plain. "If you watch footy often enough, you can see the kids who've played basketball," he says. "I mean, Nathan Burke played a lot and when he was in a pack, he'd put the ball above his head instantly. 'Let's protect the ball and make up my mind what I do with it.'
"With Gram and Dal Santo, there's no doubt their ball-handling helps them greatly. It's got to be an advantage if you can run and bounce with both hands, get rid of it with both hands. It's a hard game to play well, basketball. It's amazing how big they are and how good their ball control is in a confined area."
The fact that at least two prominent coaches — Roos and Wallace — are basketball nuts doubtless has had an impact on tactics in the modern era of AFL. Adelaide, for one, uses an eight-man zone defence that basically comes from basketball. If you watch the amount of blocking and screening that goes on at stoppages and at kickouts, you can see the influence of basketball.
When Richmond's Wallace employed a zone defence to beat Adelaide at Telstra Dome last year, Kevin Sheedy called it "basketball crap". It was a sledge that did not go unnoticed in the basketball community.
Brendan Joyce, for one, was not amused. Joyce, assistant coach of Australia's Boomers, head coach of the new Gold Coast franchise in the National Basketball League and a one-time tough onballer for Jacana in northern Melbourne, thinks there is plenty of basketball happening in Australian football.
Joyce was a handy footballer as a teenager, winning invitations to join North Melbourne. But he stuck with basketball, became a star with Nunawading Spectres in the NBL and played in state basketball teams with both Wallace and Shaw.
"Footy's become a game of possession and quick decision-making. That's a lot like basketball," he said.
Some people have the ability to learn another language, yes I remember the French word for please isn’t it “silver-plate”?
Similarly I believe some players are born with the ability to learn and refine their peripheral vision.
Do others think players are born with this skill, can it be learnt?
WHEN Scott Pendlebury goes dancing in and out of traffic in his Collingwood guernsey on a weekend, he could just as easily be running the point-guard spot for Australia at the Youth Olympics, which is precisely what he was doing a couple of years ago.The same goes for Jason Gram and Nick Dal Santo, St Kilda's dexterous pair. When a stationary Dal Santo flicked the ball to Gram at the 50-metre line against Geelong last Sunday, allowing Gram to bomb a long goal, they could just as easily have been playing basketball and setting up a three-point shot.
No surprise there, since Dal Santo played representative basketball in Bendigo and Gram did the same in Gippsland as a boy.
Basketballers have been flourishing in the AFL for a long time but as the trends of the modern game push more players into the same patch of space for more of the time, the connection only seems to grow. Pendlebury, who quit a burgeoning career in basketball to join his mates at the Gippsland Power, is merely the latest example. Nor is he alone. At the end of last year, Adelaide drafted a 201-centimetre boy, Kurt Tippett, who had previously played basketball for Queensland's under-18 team and hardly kicked a football in anger. Then there are the established basketballer-footballers, such as the Western Bulldogs' Scott West and Melbourne's Russell Robertson, and the coaches who played, such as Paul Roos and Terry Wallace, both state-level basketballers.
Pendlebury is winning rave reviews in only his second season for poise under pressure. "What Pendlebury's got is vision," says Tony Shaw, another of the devotees to the round-ball game. Shaw played for Coburg Giants and won a national championship many years ago. "His lateral movement is like you do to go out wide in basketball. It's like going into the low post and you move out to receive the ball. The other thing is reaction. The smaller players like Terry Wallace and Scott West, they've got urgency. In basketball, you have that non-stop."
When Shaw was coaching Collingwood some years ago, he made sure the Magpies entered two teams in a local competition at Nunawading. It had a purpose.
"When those guys came down, they couldn't even bounce the ball without looking at it," he recalls. "They kept running into each other because they couldn't look up. But by the end, their co-ordination was much better. Basketball is sensational for football. I've always believed that."
David Schwarz thinks along similar lines. When Schwarz sees Pendlebury and West working in the maelstrom of the midfield, he knows where they got their vision and creativity and speed. Schwarz, of course, played basketball for Sunbury Jets in the Continental Basketball Association as a teenager.
"Pendlebury's a freak. He sees things unfold before they actually do," says Schwarz.
"Whether that's just natural ability or it's the basketball, I don't know. In basketball, you have to have an element of surprise. You're in the same space. In footy, there's more luck involved with the bounce of the ball, the wind and whatever. In basketball, it's constant and you're looking for something, the alley-oop, the bounce between the legs, the no-look pass. Basketballers are more creative than what the footballers are."
Clubs noticed all of this a long time ago. Veteran St Kilda recruiter John Beveridge says it is plain. "If you watch footy often enough, you can see the kids who've played basketball," he says. "I mean, Nathan Burke played a lot and when he was in a pack, he'd put the ball above his head instantly. 'Let's protect the ball and make up my mind what I do with it.'
"With Gram and Dal Santo, there's no doubt their ball-handling helps them greatly. It's got to be an advantage if you can run and bounce with both hands, get rid of it with both hands. It's a hard game to play well, basketball. It's amazing how big they are and how good their ball control is in a confined area."
The fact that at least two prominent coaches — Roos and Wallace — are basketball nuts doubtless has had an impact on tactics in the modern era of AFL. Adelaide, for one, uses an eight-man zone defence that basically comes from basketball. If you watch the amount of blocking and screening that goes on at stoppages and at kickouts, you can see the influence of basketball.
When Richmond's Wallace employed a zone defence to beat Adelaide at Telstra Dome last year, Kevin Sheedy called it "basketball crap". It was a sledge that did not go unnoticed in the basketball community.
Brendan Joyce, for one, was not amused. Joyce, assistant coach of Australia's Boomers, head coach of the new Gold Coast franchise in the National Basketball League and a one-time tough onballer for Jacana in northern Melbourne, thinks there is plenty of basketball happening in Australian football.
Joyce was a handy footballer as a teenager, winning invitations to join North Melbourne. But he stuck with basketball, became a star with Nunawading Spectres in the NBL and played in state basketball teams with both Wallace and Shaw.
"Footy's become a game of possession and quick decision-making. That's a lot like basketball," he said.
Some people have the ability to learn another language, yes I remember the French word for please isn’t it “silver-plate”?
Similarly I believe some players are born with the ability to learn and refine their peripheral vision.
Do others think players are born with this skill, can it be learnt?