The purpose of this study was to acquire biomechanical data related to the physical act of jumping to intercept a high pass in the game of basketball. Six male basketball players volunteered to take part in this study. They performed two types of vertical squat jumps (SJ), from the starting positions, with the hands up (upSJ) and hands down (downSJ), and two types of vertical countermovement jumps (CMJ), from the staring positions, with their hands up (upCMJ) and hands down (downCMJ). They performed each jump condition seventeen times initiated by reaction to visual stimulus as quickly and as high as possible. The height of the jump was lowest in the upSJ condition. The height of the jump in the downSJ condition was not significantly different from both the CMJ conditions. The total reach time (time from the onset of visual stimulus to the time when subjects reached their peak during a jump) in the SJ conditions were significantly shorter than the CMJ conditions. Time when subjects reached 10cm from dactylion height over their heads in the upSJ condition was the shortest, and the time in the downSJ condition was the second shortest. The results suggest that it is important to take squat conditions (“stay low”) when a basketball player is required to jump as quickly and high as possible
