Sunday, October 12, 2008

Old Skewl Basketball Terms

Matt's comment on Jeff's post got me thinking. Aside from the word "pack"



meaning "to block the opposing players shot with such force that it comes down upon shooters face" there are many Old School basketball slang terms that we have all used. Here's what I came up with over the weekend . I'm sure you guys will have others so please feel free to post/comment your thoughts and suggestions:

Hops- one who can jump really high on the hardwood. Something that Timmay or Jeff do not have. "Dude, that boy got hops!"


Schooled- when defender gets beat so bad that they are completely off balance. The height of "schooling" is when the defender falls down to one knee. "Had schooled Timmay so bad that he sprained his ankle." New age basketball slang for "schooled" is "broken off".

Cake- means roughly the same thing as "schooled" but isn't confined to basketball. I've heard this more when playing Techmo Bowl or football "dude, I totally caked you with Bo Jackson on that 45 yard sweep."

Brick- shooter misses a shot off the rim so bad that the rim makes a terrible sound or the basketball flies off the rim at a high speed/long distance that isn't equal to the velocity of the ball when it was shot. "Champie shoots bricks. Like always."

Hack- a really hard foul caused by swinging the arms. "Matt can't play defense so all he does is hack. He's also a hack of a golfer."

Stuff- see definition of "pack".

Swat- a blocked shot that flies like a bullet usually toward the sideline out of bounds resulting in the offense retaining the ball. The swat looks cool, but usually doesn't lead to a change of possession. "Pablo routinely gets swatted whenever he takes it to the hole."

All Ball- references a defensive players' excuse that he indeed did not foul the shooter while attempting to block the shooters shot. When a referee calls a foul on an attempted blocked shot the defensive player exclaims "but I got All Ball, yo!" resulting in a technical. Pizzle routinely claims that he got "all ball" enroute to fouling out with 4 minutes left in the 2nd quarter.

All Day- when a shooter has made many long shots in a row usually resulting in the shooter or one of his teammates saying "All Day!" after every made shot. Punks say "All Day" after hitting their first shot usually jinxing their entire shooting performance. Players say "All Day" after no less than their third make in a row.

Shut Down- when defense is played so well that the offensive player and/or offensive team is having a lot of trouble scoring. Not a sexy term or basketball method in this day of small ball. "It is pretty easy to shut down Hinkey on the court since he doesn't know how to play basketball."

Steps- referring to the "travel" violation. "Too Many Steeeeps" blares out of loudspeakers to this day during NBA games.

Killer Crossover- a term coined by Tim "The Homophobe" Hardaway to explain his crossover dribble move that stopped a defender in his tracks leading to an easy drive by Tim. The dribble crossover of Hardaway was so quick that it was referred to as "killer". "That guy on our team Cam has a Killer Crossover. Damn, he's good."

1 comment:

Hyland said...

Used: Like, Cameron, you just got USED by Bilbo. Similar to Schooled, but Used leaves you looking around in confusion. Like when you tell a girl that you really think you connect and would really like to get to know her better while meeting her drunk at a bar. You sleep with her that night, then she awakes to snuggle and talk about how great the night was, and you're gone...for good! She looks around in confusion because she just got Used.

Run up and Done up: See "Used"