Netball: compared and contrasted with basketball

We went to see several games of netball being played on a sports complex with many, many courts and tons of teams, players, and parents. All players were female, which led me to wonder whether netball is an exclusively female sport. I researched further and it does seem to be a primarily female sport (much like field hockey is for women in the US, though it is played by just as many -if not more- men in other countries) as I read that "Netball emerged from early versions of women's basketball, evolving with the increasing participation of women in sport."

The game that we watched the closest was actually a game that was being played between a young female team in uniform against their parents! I speculated that it must have been just an unused court before or after a real match, or perhaps their scheduled opponent did not turn up to the game. It was nice to see how Australian mothers as well as fathers could jump in and play with their kids, truly putting 100% into the game and having a laugh while doing so. The parents did end up scoring on the young girls many more times and seemed to be the real winners despite being older and less in-shape, though I think it was because height can give such an advantage in a game like netball.

The primary differences between netball and basketball that I found seem to be

1. in basketball you can take dribble with the ball up the court whereas in netball you can only take 2 steps at most and do not dribble

2. netball is played in thirds and basketball in halves

3. with netball you have 7 players on the court, but in basketball only 5

4. the hoop or ring does not have a net on it as it does in basketball (which is interesting considering the name begins with net-)

I personally think that netball is closest to the game handball, which is not played competitively but rather is only popular in middle school gym classes in the US or as a teamwork building activity that my soccer and lacrosse teams used to use from time to time. With handball, you cannot move with the ball and thus need to really work with your teammates and be very mindfull of positioning in order to reach your goal.