Estruturas táticas ofensivas (1-2-2 e 2-2-1) no basquetebol feminino Sub-14: Estudo exploratório das interações na rede de passes

This study focuses on youth women’s basketball in Portugal, aiming to understand the effect of the offensive tactical structures 1-2-2 and 2-2-1 at the under-14 level, during the initiation to the 5x5 game, through an exploratory use of Social Network Analysis (SNA). Three district teams participating in the 2022/2023 Under-14 Women’s Inter-District Tournament were analysed, each implementing one of the tactical structures under investigation either systematically or alternately. An observational design was adopted, with 83 positional attack sequences extracted from three pre-selected games recorded by FPBtv. All passing actions were registered, allowing the construction of interaction matrices, which were subsequently processed using SocNetV software to calculate the micro-level variables (degree centrality and prestige), meso-level variable (reciprocity), and macro-level variable (density). The results revealed no significant differences between the structures analysed, except for a higher reciprocity in the passing networks associated with the 2-2-1 structure. It is concluded that the data obtained through SNA, due to the use of static networks and the need for a larger sample size, showed limited sensitivity in capturing the dynamic complexity of the positional attack game of different basketball teams. Therefore, it is recommended to adopt spatio-temporal dynamic approaches and to conduct quasi-experimental studies with greater control over team composition and contextual variables.