THE RELATIVE AGE EFFECT IN BRAZILIAN NATIONAL BASKETBALL TEAMS OVER TIME

Matheus Neves Rufino Pereira^1*Francisco Zacaron Werneck^1*Gabriel Torres da Silva¹Helder Zimmermann Oliveira²Lívia Costa dos Reis Souza¹Pedro Silva Carvalho¹Davi Romeiro Soares Alves¹Dilson Borges Ribeiro Junior¹

• ¹Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
• ²Universidade Salgado de Oliveira - Centro Universo Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil

Abstract Introduction: In basketball, identifying and developing potential athletes is crucial, and the Relative Age Effect (RAE) plays an important role in this process. However, could this effect interfere in the selection of elite players? Objective: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the RAE in Brazilian male and female basketball national teams in official competitions and to examine its association with the competition type, age category and collective performance. Methods: A total of 1,585 athletes were analyzed, including 703 males and 882 females. The mean age of the male athletes was 20.99 years old (±5.80), and their mean height was 196.72 cm (±9.36), while the female athletes had a mean age of 20.83 years old (±5.80) and a mean height of 179.00 cm (±6.44). The sample consisted of athletes who participated in world and continental competitions between 2002 and 2023, in the U15, U16, U17, U18, U19 and senior categories. The data were collected from the International Basketball Federation's website (https://www.fiba.basketball). Athletes' months of birth were categorized into quartiles and semesters, and the medalists and non-medalists team performance was analyzed, considering world and continental competitions besides youth versus senior categories. To investigate the RAE across categories, the Chi-Square (X²) test for quartiles was applied. To analyze the association of the RAE (semester) with competition type, outcome and category, the Chi-Square (X²) test was used as well. Results: The findings revealed a significant presence of the RAE (p<0.001) across all groups analyzed, regardless of gender, competition type, category or team performance. No associations were observed between semester of birth and competition type or team performance for either gender. Regarding category type, a significant association was found between being born in the first semester and participating in youth competitions for males (p=0.03) and females (p=0.003). Conclusion: The RAE is present at the elite level of Brazilian basketball over time, showing association only with the type of category.