The sport of basketball was invented at the close of the nineteenth century. By the end of the twentieth century, only soccer surpassed it as the world's most popular sport, as top basketball players from the United States were among the most...

game played between two teams of five players each on a rectangular court, usually indoors. Each team tries to score by tossing the ball through the opponent's goal, an elevated horizontal hoop and net called a basket. The only major sport strictly of...

Court game between two teams of five players. They score by tossing, or “shooting,” an inflated ball through a raised hoop, or “basket,” located in their opponent's end of the court. A goal is worth two points, three if shot...

The Young Men’s Christian Association introduced basketball to China in the mid 1890s. More than a century later, Chinese hoops player Yao Ming became a cross-cultural celebrity when a US professional team chose him as the number one pick in the...

Baseball is America's favorite pastime, but it's basketball that is wholly American in origin. While baseball evolved from cricket and rounders and football from soccer and rugby, basketball has no origins in the foreign sports world. In 1891, James A....

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five active players each try to score points against one another by propelling a ball through a 10 feet (3 m) high hoop (the goal) under organized rules. Basketball is one of the most...