Basketball without borders

During the first overwhelming half day in Prague yesterday a big next step in our development has been taken. The 80 participants got to know eachother, received good speeches from different leaders in the FIBA organisation and connected to the overwhelming basketball cultures of the represented countries. It was an excellent kick-off of this Time Out Project. https://www.fiba.com/news/welsch-and-stepanova-excited-for-time-out-project

And this morning that flow continued with a very interesting presentation from Patrick Koller, FIBA Communications Director about the FIBA strategy.  https://www.fiba.basketball/strategy He made clear what basketball has achieved in the world and what potential is still in store. With 450 million players and fans in the world it shows. Latest research shows that the global position of basketball in the market is very good, right after soccer. The best example of this potential is bringing 3x3 basketball to the Olympics. https://www.fiba.com/3x3 This good news is even more impressive than it seems. Basketball will be the only sport to bring more athletes to the next Olympic Games in Tokio than to the last. For The Netherlands this was great news, because already a couple of years we invested extra time and attention in 3x3 basketball. This investment paid off with a superb result in winning the silver medal at the World Cup 3x3 last week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcPGdP0O2E0 How nice that Bas 'The mountain' helped out every week this season with the Big Men training at Basketball Academy RTC Noord. https://basketballrtcnoord.nl/

We are very curious what our U18 3x3 team will do at the World Cup in China next week. For the first time the National Team U18 integrated the 3x3 in the program and this might also provide lots of benefits for the 5x5 player development. If we look subjectively at where our men 5x5 basketball stands in the world and what is necessary to develop to a higher level, some logical things are clear to see. We have a lot of tall, healthy, creative and confident players that can work together. In the mental and tactical parts of the game we can match easily with opponants. In the physical and technical parts we obviously are not good enough. At the end after good scouting and video analysis it all comes down to beating your own man one-on-one and stopping your man one-on-one. A lot of this has to be done in the 5x5 practices, but 3x3 is a perfect way to develop this part of the game, wit the extra benefit of necessary quick transition to offense or defense after every play.

Tonight we saw Belgium coming short against Spain in the semi-final of the women Eurobasket. The quickness of the Spanish, with their proper footwork, technique and decisionmaking in complex situations made the difference and led to an expected final Spain - France tomorrow. Also during this tournament it is clear what in youth development should be focussed on.

At the main time FIBA keeps developing the game of basketball and crosses many borders that were not foreseen to be possible. with the vision to make basketball the most popular sports community. The strategy, values and four pillars of focus(3x3 is one of them) are going to help to realise this ambition. The Time Out project can certainly make a difference. https://www.fiba.basketball/strategy

In the afternoon we had several sessions about our Honours program at Northumbria University, which was winner of the Business school of the year 2015. With support of the European Union through Erasmus+ funding this program has been made possible for the former basketball players, who are according to FIBA the heart of the game. Very interesting was the session from Guy Taylor about the international research about Dual Careers in sports and education. Also this project was funded by Erasmus+ and the results ar available on https://gees.eu/

Tomorrow another day to cross borders and make the basketball comunity grow. And watch a great final. https://www.fiba.com/eurobasketwomen/2017