INTRODUCTION Within talent identification in sports, test batteries assessing physical abilities and skills are commonly used to assist coaches in their efforts to identify promising young players (Johnston & Baker, 2020). For basketball particularly though, there is only limited evidence for the relevance of physical parameters in predicting future performance, especially as it pertains female youth players (Johnston et al., 2018; Mancha-Triguero et al., 2019). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare physical performance indicators of selected and non-selected female and male elite youth players competing at the national selection tournament of the German Basketball Federation. METHODS The study samples consisted of N = 46 female U16 and N = 68 male U15 elite youth players who were invited to participate in the initial selection tournament for the German youth national basketball teams. In advance of the tournament, players passed a standardized physical performance test battery (10m-sprint, counter movement jump, standing long jump, modified agility T-test). After the tournament, n = 13 female and n = 27 male players were selected for the extended roster of the respective youth national teams. Independent samples t-tests and associated Cohen`s d were calculated for each gender separately to compare the test results between selected and non-selected players. RESULTS Considering descriptive statistics, selected players outperformed their non-selected counterparts in all investigated tests (except for male players in the 10m-sprint). Within the female sample, selected players outperformed non-selected players in the 10m-sprint (p < .05, d = 0.68) and the modified agility T-test (p < .05, d = 0.67). However, comparisons just failed to reach significance with respect to counter movement jump (p = .08) and the standing long jump (p = .07). For males, t-tests confirmed significant advantages for selected players in counter movement jump (p < .05; d = 0.49), while no statistically meaningful advantages were found regarding 10-m sprint (p = .29), standing long jump (p = .15), and the modified agility T-test (p = .42). DISCUSSION The present findings show that some of the conducted tests may assist coaches in identifying promising youth basketball players. However, there seem to be gender differences with regards to the abilities that differentiate selected from non-selected players. Thus, while speed abilities seem to be more relevant for identifying talented female basketball players, vertical jumping abilities may be a focus in male players. Future research is needed to examine such gender differences more closely.
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