Basketball League Software
Ten teams, 90 games, a FIBA table and a points leaderboard fed straight from the scoreboard
A basketball league under the 2026 FIBA rules gives 2 classification points for a win, 1 for a loss and 0 for a forfeit, and settles level teams on the games between them. In JudgeMate you create a match league with basketball as the discipline and the FIBA rule set is already selected. Each game runs on a live board where a tap on a player tile credits the points, and the Points leaderboard grows with every result you confirm.
What a September-to-May season adds up to
Ten teams playing home and away meet each opponent twice. One half of the season is 9 matchdays of 5 games, so the full season is 18 matchdays, 90 games and 18 games per team. Thirty-odd weeks between September and May leave room for holidays and gym closures.
A company league with six teams is lighter: 15 games in a single round, 30 home and away, 10 matchdays of 3 games.
Gym bookings depend on how long a game lasts. FIBA Article 8 sets 4 quarters of 10 minutes, with 2 minutes between the first and second and between the third and fourth quarter and 15 minutes at half-time. That is 59 minutes before the clock has stopped once for a foul or a time-out. Book about an hour and a half per game. If your league plays 4 × 8, shorten the quarters in the settings.
The FIBA table: a loss still earns a point
Appendix D of the 2026 FIBA Official Basketball Rules gives 2 classification points for a win, 1 for a loss and 0 for a forfeit. Showing up therefore pays: a team that loses all 18 games in a ten-team league finishes on 18 points, while a forfeit adds nothing.
Teams level on points are compared first on the games between them: classification points, then point difference, then points scored in those games. Only then come point difference and points scored across all games. When three teams are level and one of them has been placed, the procedure starts again from the top for the remaining two.
A new basketball league in JudgeMate starts with exactly this, shown as FIBA (2026 Rules, Appendix D) under Tie-break order. Points per game come from the rule set, so the creator hides the win and loss fields.
Say Harbor and Lakeside both finish on 28 points. Lakeside has the better overall difference, +64 against +41. Harbor won the home game 78-70 and lost 71-74 away, so each has 3 points from the pair, but Harbor is +5 in those two games and finishes above. FIBA settles a complete deadlock by drawing lots. JudgeMate does not draw lots, and a league has no manual ordering for a complete deadlock.
If your league awards points differently, pick a custom tie-break order in the same section and set the points for a win and a loss yourself.
Game night: player tiles, fouls and the bonus
Open a fixture and tap Start live scoring. In a league the board knows the rosters, so +1, +2 or +3 opens a grid of player tiles for that team, with recently picked players in a row on top. Press and hold the same button to add points with no player, which is handy when the scorer missed who shot.
The personal foul button works the same way. The board counts team fouls per quarter, carries the fourth-quarter count into overtime and lights the bonus from the fifth team foul, the first one that sends the opponent to the line. A player on four fouls is flagged and the fifth marks them out. Time-outs follow the FIBA allowance of 2 in the first half, 3 in the second and 1 per overtime, and the 24- and 14-second shot clock pauses with the game clock.
The match sheet has a judge link with a QR code, so a table official can run the board on their own phone. When the board ends, the Next step bar in the league cockpit asks you to Confirm result. Only then does the game count in the table and the leaderboards. A game played without the board goes in through Enter result manually, which takes the final score only.
Points leaderboard and the foul list
Every point credited to a player tile lands in the league's Points leaderboard once the result is confirmed. The public league page shows it under Stats, so players and parents check the scoring race without asking you.
The cockpit adds a second list, Fouls, built from the personal fouls credited to players in confirmed games. It stays in the cockpit and is not published. Use it for a quiet word with the captain of the team that fouls most.
Both lists are only as complete as the scoring at the table. Points added with a long press, or games entered manually, count for the team and the table but for no player. If one gym credits every basket to a player and another does not, players from the second gym end up with fewer points than they scored.
Setting the league up in JudgeMate
Start from create for basketball, choose League and sign in.
- League type: League matches, discipline basketball.
- Basics: name, season (for example 2026/27), venue and visibility. A public league can be followed without an account.
- Format: switch on Home and away rounds and keep the FIBA rule set. Period length starts at 10 minutes and the number of periods at 4; a league playing 4 × 8 changes it here. The walkover score defaults to 20-0 for basketball, as in FIBA Article 20, and can be changed.
In the cockpit the Next step bar walks you through the rest: add the teams with rosters (names and shirt numbers; players need no accounts), generate the schedule, then play or enter the first game. Under Courts & schedule you add your courts, a start time, slot length, turnaround and team rest, and Auto-schedule spreads the unplayed games without clashes. The schedule exports to PDF and CSV for the gym noticeboard. A co-organiser with an account can run boards and confirm results from their own login.
When every game is confirmed, the bar offers End season and then Publish results. The public page lives at /en/leagues/ plus your league's address and shows the table, fixtures, a live bar with a link to the game in progress, and the Stats tab. The public league list shows featured leagues only, so send the link to the teams yourself.
What JudgeMate does not do for a basketball league
No box score. Rebounds, assists, steals, made threes and plus-minus are not recorded. The leaderboards stop at points and personal fouls.
One foul button. Technical and disqualifying fouls, and the disruptive foul and flagrant foul added in 2026, have no separate buttons, so nothing disqualifies a player automatically after two of them. The board also does not apply the FIBA limit of 2 time-outs in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter.
No play-off series. A league plays its fixtures only. Best-of-three or best-of-five series are not available; run the play-offs as a separate tournament with a knockout bracket.
Organisers enter the results. In a league only the organiser and co-organisers enter and confirm results; teams cannot report scores themselves.
No official scoresheet or federation link. Nothing goes to FIBA LiveStats or association systems, and there are no payments or notifications.
For the rules behind the board, read how basketball scoring works and the basketball referee guide. For a pick-up game without a league, open the basketball live scoreboard.
Set up your event
Free for organizers. No athlete cap. No commission on registrations. See basketball features · Organizer guide