Sports fans have to get creative to find their fix during the time of coronavirus. With live sports shut down unilaterally across the world, there has never been a better time to reminisce about history, reboot an old video game dynasty, or wonder what the future of your favorite sport might look like.
We now have another option to occupy our time: nun basketball.
This video of nuns in Spain playing a game of pick-up is the closest we’ve come to real sports since the pandemic arrived.
Alejandro Avila shared a video of some nuns in Sevilla, Spain, working on their ball movement and shooting techniques this morning.
Nunca pensé que vería a unas monjas de clausura jugando al baloncesto. Hoy he visitado el convento de San Leandro, donde sus monjas han cambiado la elaboración de sus célebres yemas por mascarillas sanitarias. Entre costura y costura, tiros a canasta. #Sevilla #Sevillahoy pic.twitter.com/enf7TyVjCy
— Alejandro Ávila (@AleAvilaV) April 13, 2020
This is the type of ball movement that would make Steve Kerr blush.
Crisp passing, genuine unselfishness, some impressive finishing: these nuns have it all. Just don’t ask them to show off their ball handling or their defense.
By 2 p.m. today, the original video had roughly 1.2 million views.
“I never thought I’d see some cloistered nuns playing basketball,” wrote Avila. “Today I have visited the convent of San Leandro, where their nuns have changed the elaboration of their famous buds for sanitary masks. Between sewing and sewing, shots to the basket.”
Reaction on Twitter was typically hilarious:
No dunks? Smh 🤦🏻♂️
— Michael Scott #MFFL (@ScottForThree) April 16, 2020
is it a sin if someone steals the ball?
— David Lamb (@DavidlambEX) April 16, 2020
3 Hail Marys
— AggieDarkSide12 (@1stColonel) April 16, 2020
White Nun cant jump.
— Lexo Sharp (@LexoSharp) April 16, 2020
Nuns are just like the Houston Rockets- where’s the defense!
— Dr. Nobody Out Pizzas the Hut! (@WieckingChris) April 16, 2020
These are not the first nuns to enjoy a game of basketball.
Shelly Pennefather was a former standout at Villanova in the 1980s, averaging over 20 points per game for her four-year career, winning Big East Player of the Year three times, and being named a first-team All-American as a senior.
Pennefather was playing professionally in Japan at age-25 when she decided to turn down a $200K contract offer to instead become a nun in Virginia.
Pennefather would become known as Sister Rose Marie of the Queen of Angels upon entering the Poor Clares, one of the strictest religious orders in the world.
She is only allowed physical contact with her family once every 25 years
On March 11, the NBA halted play after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus.
Gobert, teammate Donovan Mitchell and other Association players who contracted the virus have all since recovered, but the season remains suspended.