Why do you think they used to refer to basketball players as "cagers"?
Actually, this is true. Back in the early part of the 20th century, many games were actually played inside a wire cage (not on top, just the sides). That way, the ball never went OOB. Players would wind up with indentation marks all over their arms after the game.
You may think I am making this up, but I am not. Read anything on the history of basketball in the US and you will see that the term "cagers" was routinely used in newspaper stories well into the 1960s, even though the cages went away many years before.
Personally, I have never seen a match inside a cage (other than WWF), but I do remember the center jump after every basket.
