Basketball initiative 'hooping' more kids will take up sport in Inverness and Highlands
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Primary basketball teams in Inverness will soon be taking on the mantle of their Atlantic cousins as part of a national drive towards rooting basketball in Highland communities.
Highland Bears Basketball Club this week launched a training programme for five schools that could see them compete in a Glasgow final.
Schools donning new strips ahead of the five-week training programme are Drakies, Cradlehall, Duncan Forbes, Balloch and a Smithton Croy cluster team.
Ryan Devlin, chairman and head coach of Highland Bears Basketball Club, said the initiative is designed to get more players involved in the sport.
He said: “This is a scheme to create grassroots interest in the sport of basketball.
“Aimed at primary five and six pupils, each team from the schools will have up to 15 players.
“One of the rules of the tournaments will mean that there is a 50/50 gender split in the game.
“Four members will be on the court at any one time.”
He added: We were selected as one of the areas for NBA funding through Basketball Scotland.
“This means that the NBA training programme and discipline, as well as funding for the schools and young people to take part in the tournaments has been awarded.”
The teams will be given strips that have been designed upon the lines of the team it will represent. As the teams are all representing major league sides from America, it might mean they have a strip that is from the Boston Celtic, Toronto Raptors or the Philadelphia 76ers.
Mr Devlin continued: “The whole aim of this project is about getting children interested in basketball.”
He added: “We want the sport to be a grass roots sport that will ultimately aid the health and wellbeing of all involved.”
A series of five tournaments will be played with players playing four eight minute quarters in each of their games.
The overall winner from these tournaments will face a regional heat, the winners of that heat will then progress to the next round.
The final game will be played prior to a major basketball game in Glasgow later in the year.
