Association of Game-Specific Performance of Young Skilled Basketball Players with Sensorimotor Factors of Agility Skills

Abstract

Reactive agility is one of the most important skills in basketball. However, the question remains to what extent the sensory and motor components of agility contribute to specific performance in the game. This study investigated the relationship between indicators of game-specific performance and perceptual-cognitive and physical aspects of agility performance in youth skilled basketball players. A group of 16 basketball players (age 15.5 ± 0.9 years) performed visual perception tasks, divided attention tasks, simple and choice reaction tests, along with Y-shaped and Lane agility tests. Their specific game performance was evaluated using the game statistics analysis. The visual perception score significantly correlated with assists (r = 0.850, p = 0.000), game efficiency (r = 0.760, p = 0.001) and total points scored (r = 0.715, p = 0.003). Coefficients of determination showed that visual perception explained 72.3% of the variance in assists, 57.8% in game efficiency and 51.1% in total points scored. These findings indicate that specific game performance in basketball is not associated with sensory and physical aspects of agility skills in youth players. An exception is visual perception, which plays a significant role in their performance. Players with better visual perception are able to dish out more assists, are more efficient in the game and score more points overall.