College basketball
College basketball (or college basketball ) is played at most universities and colleges in the United States . As a college sport , basketball is the most popular sport for men after American football , baseball , athletics and soccer and for women after athletics, softball , soccer and volleyball , although it has by far the most teams and is therefore the most widespread: only 29 of 1119 universities (none of them in Division I) did not offer men's basketball in 2016 and only twelve of 1,119 universities did not offer women's basketball.
The most famous college basketball league is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Even if the NCAA is not a professional league, it is very professionally organized and the national championship of the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship tournament, along with other basketball tournaments, generates 95% of its income for the NCAA.
Since only the best talent is recruited from high schools , it serves as a stepping stone to professional basketball. College basketball differs only slightly from professional leagues. Since the 1980s, the time that one has for an attack in the NCAA has been 30 seconds compared to the usual 24 seconds in professional basketball. The three and free throw lines are also closer to the basket and the playing field is insignificantly smaller. The games in the NCAA are not divided into quarters, as is usual in professional leagues, but into two halves of 20 minutes each.
Individual evidence
- ^ NN: 2015-16 NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report. On: NCAA Publications website; Indianapolis, IN, 2016. Retrieved May 3, 2018 (in English).
- ↑ Howard P. Chudacoff: Changing The Playbook. How Power, Profit, and Politics Transformed College Sports. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, 2015: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-08132-3 (page 129, in English).
- ↑ http://www.ncaa.org/championships/playing-rules/mens-basketball-rules-game Men's Basketball Rules of the Game