From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In basketball, an air ball is a shot that misses the basket completely, failing even to hit the rim or backboard. The term is one of many coined by the legendary American play-by-play sportscaster Chick Hearn.^[1] Particularly embarrassing to the shooter, an air ball by an opposing player during a competitive game will usually prompt fans (primarily in the college game) present to chant "Aiiiir ball! Aiir ball!" repeatedly in a continuous drone to humiliate the player. Since the early 1990s, it has become common to restart the chant the next time the shooter touches the ball.

Perhaps the most famous and fortuitous air ball in history was a desperation shot attempted by N.C. State’s Dereck Whittenburg during the 1983 NCAA Championship Game. Whittenburg’s teammate Lorenzo Charles was positioned under the basket and dunked the ball as time expired, providing the winning margin over the heavily-favored University of Houston team.

The term has spread to ice hockey, where a shot that completely misses the net, post, and goalie is called an air puck. This usually happens during an empty net situation near the end of regulation.

References

See also

• Brick (basketball)

From StrategyWiki, the free strategy guide and walkthrough wiki

Airball
Developer(s)	MicroDeal
Publisher(s)	MicroDeal
Release date(s)	1987
Genre(s)	Adventure
System(s)	Amiga, Apple IIGS, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, DOS, Dragon 32/64
Mode(s)	Single player

Airball is a videogame released in 1987 by MichTron/Microdeal. The game was originally released for the Dragon 32/64, with ports following for the Atari ST, Amiga, PC DOS, Atari 8-bit, and Game Boy Advance. Airball was also ported to the Apple IIGS, but due to a curious lack of marketing, saw an extremely limited run with less than 150 sales for the platform. A version for the NES was under development, but cancelled; however, several partially complete prototype cartridges exist.

Players assume control of a human that has been transformed into a rapidly deflating ball by a wizard. The goal of Airball is to find the wizard's spellbook and return to human form.

Gameplay

The player begins every round atop inflating stations. These inflating stations, which are scattered throughout the arenas, also act as checkpoints. Remaining atop an inflating station for too long will cause the player to burst. A bar gauge at the bottom of the screen allows the player to monitor their air level.

Navigating the levels is accomplished with the directional buttons and a jump button. The view is isometric, which can often make complicated movements (such as jumping across gaps or weaving through obstacles) difficult.

Points are gathered in the form of gems that appear randomly in rooms. Players pass through the gems to collect them.

Airball can ascend stairs by jumping. The surrounding spikes, one of many obstacles found in the game, cause the player to burst. The yellow bar is the amount of air left in the ball, and the three balls in the lower left of the screen indicate the remaining amount of lives.

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