B-Ball Korea Style

Luckily for Leslie and I, we live within a five minute walk of Yonsei University, "The First and the Best" university in Korea, as the banners all over campus not so subtly point out. Especially lucky for me, this old and prestigious university has a set of outdoor basketball courts that pass no judgement on who pays tuition and who gets to play upon them.


So as you can probably imagine I've ventured over there quite often with some of my friends from work to shoot around and take on a few Koreans on their home turf. Now, you may think that basketball is basketball, regardless of your global location. You just bounce the orange ball and put in through hoop right? Well, not really. In many ways, Korean basketball can be a game unto itself.

As we've said before, Westerners are a rarity in Korea, so we sometimes get stared and pointed as we go down the street. This trend continues on the basketball court, where sometimes a small crowd of kids will gather to watch us play, cheering when we make a shot, booing when we miss, and yelling the usually few English words they know in know particular order.
Playing in Korea helps you practice your shots under pressure, as you feel like you need to give these kids their moneys worth.


My friends and I have scrimmaged with Koreans on multiple occasions and so far I've learned a few things about Korean pick-up basketball. First, I think Koreans divide basketball into two parts: "offense," and "the time when you're not playing offense." Us westerners call this time "defense" but Koreans seem to have no such notion. Okay, maybe its not quite that dramatic, but still a lot of Koreans won't start guarding you until you cross the free-throw line, and even then will not touch you in even the most delicate way, unless by accident. I do think though that this lack of physical contact might have more to do with the fact that Korean summers are hot and humid, and we westerners look more like displaced ocean mammals than basketball players. I mean, I wouldn't want a guard a panting, sticky, smelly, sweaty mess of a man either!


Finally, Korean ballers are extremely polite on the court. If I miss a shot, which happens most of the time, they often apologize and say it was their fault that I missed, not my poor skills. I had one incident that probably sums up best the Korean basketball mentality and the problems of a language barrier:
I was playing two on two with three Korean guys one afternoon. A man on the opposing team drove to the basket and I fouled him. Not much of a foul really, but I decided to give it to him anyway. He thanked me and then on the next play proceeded to drain a three pointer. Jokingly I told him: "Hey, I gave you the foul call, but you weren't supposed to do that." Then a worried look came over his face, and on the next play he instantly jacked up a wild three pointer that smacked hopelessly off the backboard. I tried to explain that he didn't need to do that, and that I wasn't serious, but it was no use. Koreans are just too nice when they play ball.