Category: Youth Pathway
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One Sunday at Vertu Motors Arena
Doors to the Vertu Motors Arena open at 8:30am. The night before, Cage Warriors filled the arena; a fighter’s mask is cleared as three courts are set up for basketball. Scoreboards flicker on. Tables are arranged for officials. Chairs are laid out for benches. As this happens, the foyer fills with boys, girls and parents
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Blaze Basketball and the Power of Belonging
Blaze Basketball stand out because of what sits underneath the teams you see on the court. Access to the Crags Centre, coaches who’ve come through the club and a pathway that stays steady from the youngest squads to the senior teams make development feel less like an ambition and more like the way things work.
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Is Basketball’s Academy System Being Left Behind?
Every sport needs a bridge between education and the professional game. When government funding arrived through the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) in 2004 — and later its successor, the Diploma in Sporting Excellence (DiSE) in 2018 — it gave young athletes across multiple sports a dual path: to train like professionals while completing
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Europe Is Losing Talent to the NCAA
College basketball is no longer just an American story. It is redrawing the global map. In the last two years, U.S. programmes have begun to lure Europe’s best young talent with offers that combine money, exposure and a proven route to the NBA. College basketball is increasingly viewed as the second-best league in the world
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Nedas Cholevinskas Chose to Stay
At 19, Nedas Cholevinskas logged 633 minutes in Super League Basketball last season. No other under-21 came close. Only one other player even broke 300 minutes, and most barely cracked double digits. Three of the league’s top five under-21s for playing time were 89ers — Cholevinskas, Di-Jani Parkinson, and Timothy Nwanko. Player Team Minutes Played
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Talent Is Everywhere, Opportunity Isn’t
British basketball has no problem getting kids onto the court. Sport England’s Active Lives Children and Young People survey shows basketball is the second most-played team sport among children, helped by outdoor courts — varied in quality but found nationwide — that make it easy to pick up a ball and play. The challenge comes
