Pick n’ Roll Efficacy and Variations between the National Teams of Greece and USA

in the Semi-Finals of Mundobasket 2006 in Japan

Mattheos Polykratis, Evaggelos Tsamourtzis, Alexandos Karypidis, Georgios Mavridis, & Antonios Christodoulos

Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Democritus University of Thrace, Hellas

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to register and analyse the alterations of Pick n’ Roll efficacy between Greece and USA in Mundobasket 2006. The sample was the game between the two national teams in the semi-finals of Mundobasket 2006 in Japan. In the 179 registered cases, all the Pick n’ Rolls were analyzed according to form,court area, players’ combination, kind of offense, player taking the final shot, shot area, way of defending Pick n’ Roll, etc. Pearson’s correlation analysis, classification (cluster) analysis and the chi-square test were used for statistical treatment of the data. The results revealed statistically significant differences between the two teams regarding the Pick n’ Roll area (χ2=8.54, df=2, p<.014) and the players’ cooperation (χ2=42.54, df=6,p< .001). As far as the relationship between the way defending the Pick n’ Roll and the offence efficacy is concerned, statistically borderline significant differences were observed (χ2=8.38, df=4, p<.08). The results also revealed statistically significant differences between the productivity of the offence and the shot area (χ2=19.71,df=4, p<.011). Regarding the Greek team, the productivity was maximized at the low-post area (83.3%).

Key words: basketball, set offence, pick n’ roll, basketball analyzing system