CCA Previews ’22: Basketball

Reading Time: 5 minutes

By Raffles Basketball EXCO ’22

1 Introduction

1.1 Choice of CCA

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender’s hoop while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop (Naismith, 1891).

1.2 Evolution of Basketball

Since its founding years in 1891, the sport has gained huge waves of popularity, which led to the merger of two of the most renowned Basketball Leagues back then, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) to form the National Basketball Association in 1946 (NBA, 2021). The evolution of Basketball saw the rule book of the NBA develop from the 13 rules curated by Dr. Naismith to one encompassing 50 articles today (NBA). The surges in popularity also led to there being a minimum of 450 million Basketball players worldwide (FIBA), with most of the players aiming to step onto the biggest stage of today, the NBA.

1.3 Basketball in the Raffles Context

Here in Raffles Basketball, we do not aim for the NBA, as that is too mainstream. Every Basketballer wishes to go to the NBA. However, as a respectable and high-achieving team, we aspire to clinch the trophies at the National A Division Championships instead (Victoria Lee, 2021). To achieve this, we will delve into our approach in Chapter 2.

2 Approach to Basketball

2.1 Training

Basketball is an analytical game, with many components to it. To hone our quick thinking skills on court, we employ the use of game analysis sessions as well as internal competitions to build on our experience, and to improve our Basketball IQ. On the other hand, physical training is also a key component of our training. This is to prepare us for the physically grueling, high intensity, energy draining nature of the sport we all love (Mulijana, 2021).

2.2 Team Bonding

As we recognise that chemistry is paramount to a well integrated team of ballers, team bonding is a pretty pivotal precursor to perfecting our relations with one another. This is a prominent part of our phenomenal performance, especially given the present pandemic (Promiscuous Penguins, 2021).

2.3 Gallery

3 Implementation of Approach

To achieve the aforementioned aims, we have 3 training sessions a week on alternate days excluding the weekend. An average of 7.5 hours of training is accumulated per person per week, ceteris paribus. For those that identify with the male gender, training sessions are held from 6-8pm on polar ends of the weekdays, and 8-11am on the third day of the week. As for those that identify with an alternate gender, training is held from 5-8pm on Mondays, 8-11am on Wednesdays, 4.30-6.30pm on Fridays, with the Friday sessions often being a session made for conditioning.

Team meals are a common sight after training, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays (Fig 3.1, Fig 3.2). Pre-training studying sessions are also activities we are accustomed to. Once in a while, we come together as a CCA and host team bonding sessions with interesting games such as dodgeball, volleyball and gartic phone. This also includes grinding on the team minecraft server as a form of team bonding. (Fig 3.3). Sometimes we even hold fasts throughout the day before we come together to eat as a team, as a form of delayed gratification (Fig 3.4). We also shower together (Chen, 2021).

Fig 3.1. The boys waiting for McDelivery in front of Raffles Institution.

Fig 3.2. The mala lunch (during 8-pax restrictions).

Fig 3.3. Team bonding over minecraft server.

4 Stakeholders

Lastly, we would like to introduce our stakeholders that allow for our approach to be feasible, this includes the Teachers in charge of Basketball, as well as our dearest coaches.

4.1 Teachers

Our Teachers in charge as aforementioned are Mr. Carlsen Tay, Ms Kristine Ong and Ms Elaine Wong. Their duties mainly revolve around informing and helping us understand the decisions made by the School Admins, as well as overseeing our training sessions to ensure our safety. On top of that, Mr Tay takes it a step further with creating an Instagram page dedicated to us @rafflesbasketball, where he posts highlights and fun times of our training sessions as shown in the screenshot below.

Fig 4.1. Screenshot of @rafflesbasketball story on Instagram.

4.2 Coach Alanna

With reference to Fig 4.2, we see on full display Ms Alanna’s rhetoric skill.

Fig 4.2 Ms Alanna coaching at Jr NBA Singapore

4.3 Coach Bao Ling

5 Conclusion

5.1 Effectiveness

Our solutions Training and Team Bonding are effective as they inculcate the values of “Dream, Team, Fight, Win.” In the process of undertaking our approach, we encompass our dreams into our team in the process of fighting to win (Da, 2021).

Lastly, this report is effective as it is novel. No CCA has ever done a PW-formatted article.