SUNDERLAND head to Swansea City today, but Gus Poyet appears to have had half a mind on Tuesday night’s game with QPR this week – because he has been obsessing about shooting hoops.

The Black Cats head coach made his name as a professional footballer, but up until the age of 14, his preferred sport was basketball, a love he inherited from his father, Washington, who represented Uruguay on the court at two Olympic Games and multiple World Cups.

Last month, Poyet watched Newcastle Eagles strengthen their position at the top of the BBL Championship with a 96-67 win over Glasgow Rocks, and last week he had a basketball net installed at Sunderland’s Academy of Light training ground.

He intends to incorporate some basketball drills into his players’ training regime, and having watched this week’s FA Youth Cup defeat to Newcastle with an analytical coach’s eye, he is confident there are some transferable skills between the two sports.

“I finally got a hoop put up at the training ground last week,” said Poyet, who freely admits he would have relished being a professional basketball player like his brother, Marcelo, had he not chosen football in his teenage years. “I haven’t played this week, but I’ve been talking about basketball a lot.

“I went to the Youth Cup game, and you could see how the kids mark and how they move. I think every single academy should play a bit more basketball because it can help in football, especially with marking.

“They way you turn, depending on where the ball or the basket is, is very similar. If you play basketball, certain movements are natural.

“There was a full-back I was watching on the TV last weekend, somebody was running at him, and he was turning, looking at the goal – you cannot mark like that.

“You mark facing the player and the ball, and that is the same in basketball. You never see a player in basketball running towards his own basket to mark without looking over his shoulder. Those little things help you, because you have to mark in a certain way.”

Poyet freely admits he would not relish facing Costel Pantilimon on the basketball court, and if he joins in a game between the members of his squad, he is going to ensure he has the six foot eight goalkeeper on his side.

Either that, or he will arrange for Newcastle Eagles player-coach Fab Flournoy to skipper his team, having been impressed by the standard of the current BBL leaders’ performance last month.

Former Newcastle United boss Alan Pardew was a fan of the Eagles, and Flournoy and a number of the club’s players visited the Magpies’ training ground two seasons ago for an impromptu match.

Poyet is hoping to arrange something similar in the next few weeks, and is confident his players will benefit from the experience as they look to put further distance between themselves and the Premier League relegation zone.

“I haven’t met him (Flournoy) yet, but I would like to,” said Poyet. “If we brought him to the training ground, you would learn something for sure.

“There are certain aspects of the game that can be good for certain reasons. I know it is small, it is a different game and they accept things that we shouldn’t. But certain aspects of the game, when you need to slow down and play for time, plenty of things that if you do in basketball and do it well, football is quite similar.

“To take the ball into the opponents’ half, maybe you have a certain time to play it. The analysis is quite similar. You use your strengths and look for their weaknesses, maybe isolate a player. There are plenty of things you can do.”

Brian Clough famously used to make his Nottingham Forest players play squash as part of their training, but basketball has always been Poyet’s other sporting love.

He would watch his father representing his country and marvel at the affection he was afforded, indeed prior to moving to the Premier League, the Copa America-winning footballer was not even the most famous sporting figure in his own family.

“My dad died a few years ago, but he was the captain of Uruguay,” said Poyet. “He was the tallest player, was quite aggressive and played all the time. He was well known for his character and will to win.

“He played at the Rome and Tokyo Olympics. He won South American tournaments, and in Uruguay, we have plenty of father and sons that have won the South American cup, in the same sport or a different one.

“My father won in basketball, and I won in football in 1995. There are other ones – the Forlans, his (Diego) father won the Copa America as well.

“For a long, long time, even when I was in the national team, he was more famous than me in Uruguay. But then football became bigger than basketball, with all the interest in the Premier League and things like that.”