Basketball Projectile

Here is a pic of me when we played Punahou last season. (and we beat them!:)) As you can see, I am attempting a hook shot over my defender. This is a perfect scenerio to demonstrate a projectile motion. For the ball to go into the basket, the velocity of the ball, which break into the vertical and horizontal components must be perfect as compared to the distance from me to the hoop and the height of where I released the ball to the height of the rim. In a projectile motion, the horizontal velocity stays constant throughout because gravity or no other forces acts upon it. However, the vertical velocity is constantly changing due to gravity, so the object is always accelerating at -9.8m/s2. Also, in this case the angle at which the basketball is launched is a key component to making the basket. So to find the velocity of the ball, I would have to know the horizontal and vertical velocities and use the pythagorean theorem. (Too bad I didn't know physics then, because if I did I might have been able to make that shot!)