The Youth Pathway series is a season-long look at how young players in Britain move from grassroots basketball to the professional game.
Through profiles, data analysis, research and reporting, it explores how different parts of the system fit together and define the opportunities available to young players.
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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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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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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…
