Brekkie Crumbs (Notes from the NewsRadio Breakfast team) for Tuesday December 15th
Debbie - Sport …
Here at NewsRadio, we’re all monitoring a range of media throughout the Brekkie show, and one of the TV programs we keep an eye on during the course of the morning is ABC2 Breakfast.
I often catch snippets of sport with Paul Kennedy on that show (as well the sport bulletins and interviews on BBC-TV, CNN, Channels 7 and 9 and FoxSports.)
Dipping in and out means I don’t get to see everything all the way through and so I don’t know if the debate about netball versus basketball that was set up by Virginia Trioli yesterday, during the sports chat with Paul on ABC2, ever actually developed. But I’m weighing in anyway. If it didn’t happen, then consider this a pre-emptive strike!
After seeing some footage from the weekend of Australian basketball legend, Lauren Jackson, playing back in the Women’s National Basketball League after returning from overseas, Virginia made a comment to the effect of “we must discuss at some stage how much more difficult it is to score in netball than basketball.” She then made a reference to the rings being smaller, and she might’ve mentioned the absence of a backboard as well.
You might be relieved to know that even people who work in the media argue back with the TV or radio on occasion. And I had a few sharp words to say to Virginia in reply to that.
Yes, the netball ring is smaller than the basketball hoop (38cm compared to 45cm) and not being able to deflect a shot off the backboard means the netball goalshooters need to have perfect placement. But I would submit there are many other challenges that face a shooter in basketball than there are in netball.
For a start, the basketball is slightly bigger and harder than a netball ball, making the bounce more dramatic when it hits the hoop.
But more importantly, defenders can make physical contact with a shooter while they’re launching their shot in basketball, something certainly not allowed in netball, where defenders can stand nearly a metre away and wave their arms in front of a goalshooter but can’t actually make any contact whatsoever. Only two players on court at any one time are allowed to take a shot in netball, and they do so from a static position, having time to balance, take aim and put up their shot unhindered.
What’s more, the shooters in netball don’t have to cover full length of the court in between shots. The goalshooter never leaves the third of the court where her goal is, the wing attack is allowed to move across two thirds of the court.
In basketball, the court is 2.5 metres shorter and slightly narrower than in netball, but every player is required to move across all areas of it in defence and attack and every player needs to be able to shoot.
The only time a basketballer gets to shoot an uncontested shot is from the foul line. And the foul line is 3.96 metres from the front of the rim.
Basketball also tests shooting from a greater range. The shooting circle in basketball is 6.25m in radius. In netball, it’s 4.9m. In basketball, you can shoot from outside that area as well and be rewarded with three points for the extra distance, so a good all-round shooter in basketball needs to be able to put the ball in from much further out than the specialist shooters in netball.
So, yes Virginia, there is a difference in the size of ring and the degree of accuracy needed when shooting in netball. But nobody in basketball gets the luxury of being a specialist shooter and standing at one end of the court waiting for the ball to be delivered to them. Everyone in basketball has to shoot, they have to be able to do it while someone is banging into their body, they have to be able to do it from further out and they have to run the full length of the court in between most shots.
I don’t think a seven centimetres bigger hoop size and a backboard makes shooting a doddle for the women in basketball, who incidentally at international level have to be able to go head to head with super powers like USA, China and Russia, not normally just beat New Zealand for a world title.
Your shot, Virginia
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Glen - Presenter …
‘He’s a celebrity - get me out of here’
Scandal-hit golfer Tiger Woods’ wife has bought a vast beachfront estate on an island near Stockholm that can only be reached by boat .
Woods is taking a hiatus from professional golf after admitting he had cheated on his wife, amid reports that 11 women had claimed to have had relationships with him.
Am I the only one starting to get a bit suspicious about the increasingly long line of women (lots of porn stars, in particular) who claim to be among the Tiger conquests?
None of them would be keen on boosting their profile or furthering their career in the sex biz, would they ?
The lesson of it all is to not become the content provider for an increasingly voracious media that ’s never been more hungry for material; the appetite for stories is so immense these days that a story like this that just keeps giving is manna from heaven.
And the media space has never been larger, and harder to fill. It needs feeding constantly and will gladly eat you up and spit you out. God forbid you prove to be worthy of more than one course.
Certainly, the online community have been grateful for the increased traffic the Tiger story has created . I think it was a Yahoo executive who said it was as good for business as Michael Jackson’s death.
Even better, she added, “It’s hard to sell ads next a funeral.” Nice.
So the moral : Sex is better than death.
Just don’t get caught.
