Highly-skilled female basketball players'' competitive three-point scoring analysis
Successful three-point scoring skills are indispensable in any team's arsenal since presently the three-point throws account for at least 30% of the best teams' attacks, with the attack success rate varying on average at the same 30%. This is the reason for the high priority being given at present to the three-point scoring success improving tools and methods in the modern basketball theory and practices. Objective of the study was to analyse the competitive three-point scoring statistics of highly-skilled basketball players. The following methods were applied in the study: empirical data collection method including the competitive performance (CP) profiling by the game time and video recording data; analysis of the formal technical game protocols; educational monitoring of the players' CP; scoring metrics i.e. three-point shooting success rates of the highly-skilled basketball team scorers; and the statistical data processing tools offered by the Microsoft Office Excel 2010.Ink toolkit. Subject to the experiments and analyses under the study were 200 national premier-league basketball players including 58 three-point scorers and their CP records as of the 2015-2016 season. The study has yielded the following results: we identified the factors limiting the competitive three-point scoring; developed a set of criteria to rate the competitive performance of the three-point scorers; and recommended the coaches making an emphasis on the three-point scoring attempts being taken with due consideration for the individual conditions and capacities of the team scorers and stress levels of the game situations. The study data and analyses made it possible to offer an efficient three-point scoring success improvement method based on a prudent competitive performance management model.