Basketball’s uncertain times as ban on indoor sports takes toll

THE treatment of basketball as something of a forgotten sport, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, could see the game lose a generation of players as, by the time collective training is allowed, children may have been up to 18 months without involvement in the sport.

While all sport has been impacted by the ongoing pandemic, the failure to bestow ‘elite’ status to the basketball’s national league clubs – which provide the bulk of the country’s international players – along with the seemingly more-stringent application of restrictions to the local game compared to other sports, has led to fears locally that the sport may suffer a setback which will take years from which to recover.

While the main GAA, rugby, and soccer seasons were allowed resume during the summer after being designated as ‘elite sports’, the failure to include basketball in that category disappointed many associated with the game.

Then, when children were allowed to do some form of training with their various sports clubs under level 3 of lockdown, restrictions appeared to be stricter for basketball than other sports: for example, children were not allowed to pass the ball to each other as it was deemed to be sharing equipment, a constraint which did not seem to be applied to other sports.

When asked about children effectively not being able to train or play games in the sport since March, head coach of Moycullen’s Super League men’s squad, John Cunningham, said that from a basketball point of view, that has been a “disaster”.

“At least our Superleague guys got a pre-season of 6-8 weeks collective activity but underage are currently 10 months without anything other than watching online videos. It’s possible that will stretch to next September which is 18 months without group training.

“In the meantime, they’ve had their soccer, GAA and rugby sessions continuing. There will definitely be some who will never return to basketball (or maybe never start). For those that basketball was ‘their sport’, they’ve lost a social outlet which may have been their only one,” Cunningham said.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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