Physical demands of international pre-matches and their relationship with the official match statistics among adolescent basketball players

Abstract Study aim: The study aimed to investigate the effects of age and gender on game-related performance (GRP) and the associations between GRP data and official game-related statistics (GRS). Material and methods: Seventeen U19, fifteen U16 boys, and thirteen U16 girls from the Hungarian national teams were monitored during 15 international pre-matches. GRP data were collected using WIMU PRO. GRS were selected from official box scores. A Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA followed by Dunn’s test was used to analyse differences between age groups and genders. Pearson correlation was used to examine the relationship between GRS and GRP. Results: Significant differences were found between U16 girls and boys in maximum speed ( p = 0.024), playing load/min ( p = 0.008), average HR ( p = 0.009), jumps/min ( p = 0.001), and explosive distance/min ( p = 0.001). U19 and U16 boys showed significant differences in average speed ( p = 0.015), maximum acceleration ( p = 0.037), high-intensity acceleration/min ( p = 0.001), and deceleration/min ( p = 0.002). The average speed correlated with at least two GRS indicators in all groups: for U16 girls, with playing time ( r = 0.349) and field goal/min ( r = 0.276); for U16 boys, with playing time ( r = 0.361), rebound/min ( r = −0.484), and steal/min ( r = 0.271); for U19 boys, with playing time ( r = 0.361), assist/min ( r = 0.421), turnover/min ( r = −0.4), and PF/min ( r = −0.379). Agility indicators significantly impacted GRS, especially in U16 boys. Total distance, jumps, and heart rate values had the weakest correlations with GRS. Conclusion: Among male players, GRS are more related to physical performance than in female players. As age increases, physicality becomes more important. High-intensity variables are most often correlated with GRS, highlighting the importance of focusing on intensity during match preparation.