THE RESULTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BASKETBALL
AND FOOTBALL PLAYERS OBTAINED BY THE DISCRIMINATIVE ANALYSIS
Abstract
It has been recognized that basketball and football are the games with specific structures that favour the players
with particular anthropologic characterstics. The success in basketball and football, as well as in other sports,
depends on a number of anthropolgical dimensions. In order to determine valid differences between
anthropological characteristics of basketball and football players who compete at different competition levels,
with the aim to program the trainings and monitor the success of the competition process, it is necessary to
undertake comprehensive research. The research was done with the aim to determine the differences between
morphological characteristics basketball and football players. The sample consists of 237 subjects, 132 of whom
are basketball players from the club Student from Nis, and 105 are football players from the club Radnicki from
Nis, competing in the junior level competitions. Morphological characteristics are determined by using 16
anthropometric measures. The obtained data were processed by the program system from multivariante analysis
data special made by Popović.D- for personal computers. The results are shown in tables. The results of the
discriminative analysis of morphological dimensions of basketball and football players show that the
investigated groups considerably differ. The Koeficijent kanonic korelation is .98, and the significance of this
discrimination has been tested by means of Wilks lambda (.02) and Bartlet testa (Hi=213.86) and 19 right
degree. The obtained results offer information that there are statistically significant differences between the
groups, because sig. is (.00). Morphological characteristics and somatotype features have been for quite some
time attracting the attention of many researchers who wanted to determine the regularities of the development in
general and of the organism of a sportsman in particular, with the aim to determine the contribution of these
characteristics in the realization of certain motoric abilities and habits. The obtained structure of basketball and
football players correlates with practice, related to the requirements of the games of basketball and football.
Key words: Motoric abilities, basketball players, football players, discriminative analysis.