## 4 Discussion  
This study examined the independent effects of novel contextual factors--game venue and season period--on sleep in female basketball players. Notable findings that were observed included: (1) players attained less than the recommended sleep duration and quality in specific scenarios surrounding games at different venues; (2) nights before away games had a significantly reduced sleep duration compared to other nights with an earlier awakening evident on the following morning; (3) although sleep patterns were altered following the early season period with later sleep onset and offset times, sleep duration and quality were consistent across chronic season periods. These key findings add useful evidence to the limited body of literature concerning the sleep behaviors of female basketball players, with potential implications for end-users in practice. On average, although players attained an adequate sleep duration (\(\geq\)7 h) and quality (sleep efficiency \(\geq\) 85%) on control nights and nights before home games according to established recommendations [35; 36], they did not meet these requirements in other scenarios across the schedule. More precisely, players attained inadequate sleep on nights after home games (duration: 6.6 h; efficiency: 82.8%), nights before away games (duration: 5.8 h; efficiency: 81.4%), and nights after away games (duration: 6.8 h; efficiency: 83.6%). These descriptive findings are less than those reported for habitual sleep in a meta-analysis  
Figure 3: Mean \(\pm\) standard deviation (large shapes and lines) alongside individual data points (small shapes) for (**A**) sleep onset, (**B**) sleep offset, (**C**) sleep duration, (**D**) wake after sleep onset (WASO), and (**E**) sleep efficiency across different nights according to season period throughout the regular season in semi-professional, female basketball players. of 14 studies examining elite (Olympic, international, professional national, or Division I collegiate levels) female athletes (mean [95% confidence intervals], duration: 7.8 [7.4, 8.2 h]; efficiency: 87% [85, 89%]) [37]. Likewise, our data are less than that documented in professional female basketball players competing in the Australian Women's National Basketball League, who were monitored for a month during the season (mean \(\pm\) SD all days, duration: 8.1 \(\pm\) 1.6 h; efficiency: 92 \(\pm\) 5%) [38], four seven-day periods during the pre-season and competitive season phases (mean \(\pm\) SD for habitual days, duration: 7.4 \(\pm\) 1.5 h; efficiency: 88 \(\pm\) 6%) [14], and two seasons (mean \(\pm\) SD all days, duration: 7.6 \(\pm\) 1.5 h; efficiency: 92 \(\pm\) 4%) [8] in separate studies. Lower sleep duration and quality in our study may be related to the novel challenges faced by semi-professional teams compared to professional teams, as studied previously [8; 14; 38]. Semi-professional teams likely operate on a lower budget with fewer resources to combat factors that may impact sleep during the season, such as adopting appropriate nutritional choices, ensuring optimal travel quality (e.g., transport mode, departure times, sleep environment when traveling), and players having added work or study commitments [11]. Moreover, common issues such as post-game media and team commitments [13], as well as rumination over individual or team performance [39], may have also underpinned the inadequate sleep on nights following both home and away games. Indeed, when comparing sleep between nights, our study adds to the limited basketball research [8], considering the night before games separately for playing at home and away, yielding some interesting insights. We observed players to be particularly susceptible to poor sleep on nights before away games, attaining \(\sim\)1.5 h less sleep than on control nights and nights before home games (\(p<0.01\), _moderate_ effects) and \(\sim\)1 h less sleep than on nights following games (\(p>0.05\), _moderate_ effect).