COMPARISON OF PLAYERLOAD™ AND PLAYERLOAD™ PER MINUTE DURING PRACTICES AND GAMES IN A COLLEGIATE DIVISION I WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM BETWEEN PRESEASON AND REGULAR SEASON ACROSS THREE YEARS

Monitoring external load in collegiate Division I (D1) women’s basketball athletes is crucial for performance optimization and injury risk mitigation, but the current lack of specific and comparable literature has prevented the establishment of normative values in this population. PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to profile and compare the external player load (PL) and player load per minute (PL·min-1) across three competitive seasons (2021-2024), comparing four distinct phases: 8-hour preseason(P08), 20-hour preseason(P20), non-conference (NON), and conference (CON) play. We also compared practice sessions versus games. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of three teams (n = 13) over three years, with seven (n = 7) athletes per team each season, was conducted using inertial movement wearable devices during every practice and game for 3 consecutive seasons. Statistical analyses was conducted using a 3 by 4 repeated measures ANOVA with Bonferroni correction and post hoc testing. Main effects of group and phase and significant year by phase interactions were examined for games+practices, games only, and practices only. Significance was set to (p < 0.05). RESULT: Findings indicated that the P20 has significantly high PL, followed by P08, and then NON and CON which were statistically similar. Similarly, PL·min-1 was most pronounced in P08, and significantly greater in both preseason phases compared to regular season play (p < 0.005). Practices exhibited significantly greater average PL than games, particularly during the P20 phase (p = 0.006). Year 1 showed higher PL overall, while PL·min-1 was lower in CON compared to subsequent seasons (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The trends suggest improved load management, with PL and PL·min-1 in recent seasons reflecting a more ideal workload distribution These findings underscore the importance of external load monitoring for informed periodization and performance optimization