Basketball Standards
Four tests that tell you what a basketball player actually has underneath him: standing vertical, approach jump, 10/5 RSI, and SL 4/2 RSI. Built from four years of high school basketball testing on the Just Jump mat and on Plyomat in JJ mode. Print them, hang them in the weight room, and let the athletes find their own line.
One number hides too much.
A standing vertical is a clean look at how much force an athlete can put into the floor when nothing is rushing him. It is the number everybody quotes, and it is worth having, but a game never gives him that setup. The approach jump adds the run-in, so it tells you whether he can take speed into the floor and get it back as height, which is what he is actually doing off a rebound or a drive.
The two RSI tests cover the half a vertical cannot see. 10/5 RSI is a repeated hop scored on ground contact, so it measures how quickly he leaves the floor after he lands on it. SL 4/2 RSI runs the same rhythm one leg at a time, which is how basketball is mostly played, and it is where a limb that is behind stops hiding behind the good one.
Two athletes, same roster
Each axis runs from the Poor floor at the centre to the World Class threshold at the outer ring, on the male varsity sheet. Test only the vertical and Athlete A is the better athlete by four inches. Test the floor contact and Athlete B is gone before A has finished landing.
| Test | Athlete A | Athlete B |
|---|---|---|
| Standing Vert | 33″ | 29″ |
| Approach Jump | 39″ | 32″ |
| 10/5 RSI | 3.00 | 4.10 |
| SL 4/2 RSI | 1.35 | 2.15 |
Neither profile is wrong, and neither one shows up in a single number. A needs contact time and stiffness work before more strength does him any good. B has the elastic qualities already and needs the force to push underneath them. Same team, same drill on Monday, two different problems.
Three ways to grade an athlete.
Every sheet is free, print ready, and yours to hang. The letter version fits a binder, the 11×17 poster is sized for a wall, and the centimetre version carries the same standards in metric.
Male varsity
Six levels, from Developmental through World Class, for high school varsity boys. Values are printed in inches and centimetres side by side.
Female varsity
The same four tests for high school varsity girls, built from the girls varsity rosters and the same facility testing.
By age, 11 to 18
Median standing vertical climbs roughly a foot between 11 and 18, so one table calls a strong younger athlete Developing and a soft older one Elite. Four age bands, three levels, graded against his own age. Track him against himself from there.
Two conventions to get straight.
Jump numbers are only comparable when everyone is using the same rules. These sheets use two conventions that are common in the field and easy to mix up, so here is what each one means and where to go if you want to see the difference for yourself.
Why the vertical reads high
The Just Jump System has timed flight a little long since 1991, which puts its jump heights roughly four to seven inches above a force plate. Twenty years of coaching records sit on that scale, so Plyomat can reproduce it exactly rather than making every athlete's history look like a sudden regression. These sheets are in JJ Mode, which means a 30 inch vertical here is not the same 30 inches you would read off a force plate.
How JJ Mode works, with a converter →Why the RSI numbers look big
Standard RSI is jump height in metres divided by contact time, and it lands somewhere near 2. Legacy RSI is built from flight time instead, on the same Just Jump scale, and it lands somewhere near 4. Both describe the same jump. These sheets are Legacy, which is what most coaches already have years of data in. Mixing the two is the mistake worth avoiding.
Both conventions, side by side →Basketball standards FAQ
What is a good vertical jump for a high school basketball player?
Why are there separate sheets by age?
What is 10/5 RSI?
Where do these standards come from?
Measure all four on one mat.
Plyomat times ground contact to a thousandth of a second, so 10/5 RSI and SL 4/2 RSI take about as long to run as a standing vertical does. You do not need a force plate or a lab to get them.
See the systems →