Six-on-six basketball

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Six-on-six basketball or basquette is a largely archaic variant of basketball, usually played by women and girls. It is played with the same rules as regular basketball, with the following exceptions:

1. Teams have six players each instead of five; three "forwards" and three "guards".
2. Only forwards are allowed to shoot the ball. Forwards must stay in their teams' frontcourt (the side of the court they shoot from) and guards must stay in their team's backcourt. For example, Team A's forwards would be on the left side of the court with Team B's guards on defense. Team B's forwards are on the right side of the court with Team A's guards. Thus, forwards play only offense and guards play only defense.
3. In some forms, unlimited dribbling is not allowed. Once in possession of the ball, players may dribble the ball up to two times; at that point, the player must shoot (if a forward) or pass to a teammate. Both forwards and guards may handle the ball.
4. There is no three-point line; all field goals are worth two points. (The three-point line would not be added to the collegiate rules until the 1980s, by which point six-on-six was mostly phased out.)

Today, nearly all women's basketball leagues (pro, college, and high school) play by the same basic five-on-five rules as men, with only minor differences such as size of the ball and the distance of the three-point line. In the United States, the last major sanctioning bodies to abandon the six-on-six variant were the high school state athletic organizations of Iowa and Oklahoma. The sport is still occasionally seen at the recreational level, such as during physical education classes; in these cases, both boys and girls play the game.