![]() The Foul Line: For all Courts, The foul line distance is 15′ from the foul line to the front of the backboard and 18′ 10″ from the baseline. High school, and Junior High court 84 feet (26 m) by 50 feet (15 m).International Basketball the court 28 meters (92 ft) by 15 meters (49 ft).Professional NBA and College Basketball court is 94 feet (29 m) by 50 feet (15 m).And so, though there is some variance depending on the league in question, modern basketball courts came into being. The official court dimensions for both the NCAA and the NBA are 94 feet long at the sidelines and 50 feet wide. The International Basketball Federation made changes to its official court rules in 2008 for World Championship and Olympic competitions, including the extension of the 3-point line to around 22.1 feet. In 1997, the NBA expanded the no-charge zone, which protects defensive players from receiving offensive fouls, to stretch in a four-foot radius around the basket. The line was 22 feet between each corner and 23 feet, 9 inches at the top point, and represented a major turning point in the sport (and the courts!). Then, in 1979, the NBA established the 3-point line. In 1951, the NBA widened the area from the free-throw line to the basket, known as the lane, to 12 feet to allow more room for players and make the game fair for players of all heights. The surface was set for pro games, but the lines and dimensions of the basketball court continued to adjust. This hard maple flooring worked so well that it became adopted as the standard for professional and semi-professional basketball games, though of course most basketballers get their start on either outdoor blacktop courts or cheaper interlocking plastic courts. So, before the first official college basketball game in winter of 1934, a 29-year-old newspaperman by the name of Ned Irish, who was moonlighting as the Madison Square Garden’s director of basketball, brought in a gymnasium-style hardwood floor and laid it over the stone floor. Predictably, this caused trouble and injuries for the players, and drew only a meager crowd. ![]() By the 1950s, rules such as backcourt, where players are not allowed to pass the ball back behind the halfway line once crossed, were in place, calling for new lines and markings that would help players, refs, and fans follow the game and its quickly-developing rules.ĭuring a college basketball exhibition in New York City in 1931, teams played on a concrete floor that had a layer of canvas on top of it. In 1924, rules for court sizes suggested that courts could be a maximum of 90 by 50 feet and a minimum of 60 feet by 3 feet. Though Naismith had originally written that basketball could be played on “any kind of ground – in a gymnasium, a large room, a small lot, a large field, whether these had uneven or smooth surfaces,” teams came to need standardized surfaces, dimensions, and layouts for the court. Since Naismith listed no specific size for a basketball court in his original 13 rules, players adapted their game according to the gym.Īcross the US, YMCA gyms hosted many of the earliest basketball games on their indoor running tracks and other such surfaces, and though the “hoop on either end” layout was the same, most other dimensions of the court (length, width, hoop height, etc.) simply adjusted to the space in which that specific game was played. Team sizes, for example, depended on the number of players present and could range from as small as 5 per team to as many as 50. Since courts, greens, and other standard modern athletic surfaces weren’t around yet, he made do with peach baskets as hoops and indoor running tracks as a playing court.Įarly games experimented with rules, and players made do with whatever equipment was available. James Naismith, a physical education teacher at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, created the sport in the 1890s when he needed an indoor activity to keep his students in shape. James Naismith invented the game in the 1890s, and so have the courts that it’s played on! Though now a hardwood gym floor in a stadium-type setting is the standard, throughout the years basketball has been played on everything from cement to fields to running tracks! While the surfaces, rules, and line layouts have evolved over time, the basic basketball court layout remains the same now as it was in the 1940s. ![]()
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