Under FIBA Rules for NZ.

One of the resent FIBA rule changes has been to eliminate the wearing Tee Shirts under singlets, which begs the question what is a Tee Shirt. To solve this, I was asked to clarify “ what is a Tee shirt”. In my role as FIBA Trainer and Technical Commissioner, I have defined for Basketball competitions in NZ that a Tee Shirt is any collarless shirt with a sleave that carries on pasted the shoulder down the arm. So any shirt worn by a player with a sleave falls under the FIBA Tee Shirt rule. This interpretation was made clear at the resent World U19 Championships and at the last FIBA clinic in Saipan.

Therefore by rule, any other garment such as a bra, another singlet, skins type top or a new protective padding singlet, can be worn under a player’s singlet irrespective of colour matching which part of  the old Tee Shirts rule.

The only rule that relates to undergarments in the FIBA rules relates only to what is worn under shorts and only pertains to under garments showing under shorts must be the same colour as the shorts.

Under Local Rules

After reading all the current Harbour competition rules, there is no mention of under garments and therefore players should not be prevented from wearing upper body under clothing in the Harbour and BBNZ competitions.

So by the current basketball rules, players can not wear Tee Shirts while playing but can have showing under their singlet any under garment they wish or need to support or protect their body, as long as there is no sleave showing passed the shoulder.

I hope this explains the situation and we all keep up with the current rules of basketball.

Ken Coulson

NZ FIBA Educator – Trainer

FIBA Commissioner

BBNZ Technical Commission