Basketball is played by two teams. Each team has five players on the court. Players score by getting the ball into the hoop. The hoop is also called the basket.

The hoop is an orange metal ring. It is 18 inches across on the inside. A net hangs from it.

A basketball hoop is 10 feet above the floor. The first hoops, in 1891, were peach baskets. They hung 10 feet up too.

A backboard is a rectangle six feet wide and three and a half feet tall.

A basket made from inside the three-point line counts two points. A basket made from outside the line counts three points. A successful free throw counts one point.

In the NBA, a team with the ball has 24 seconds to try a shot.

Basketball became an Olympic sport for men at the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany.

Senda Berenson was a teacher at Smith College. She changed the rules for women and ran the first women's college basketball game.

Basketball began in Springfield, Massachusetts. It spread quickly from there to other schools and YMCAs.

Words to know

• backboard: board behind hoop
• hoop: a ring
• teams: groups that play
• Olympic: world games