Predicting the Success of a Basketball Shot at Various Stages of Execution

A signal detection paradigm was used to measure the sensitivity of basketball players in discriminating successful from unsuccessful shots. College-level basketball players predicted a shot's outcome either before release of the ball, immediately after release, or after seeing the ball travel halfway to the basket. In none of these conditions did active shooters exhibit greater sensitivity than passive observers. Some evidence was found for sequential dependencies in shooting performance, though not to the degree that one might expect from basketball lore.