plural or possessive

[Diana Lowery]

When referring to the team sport, which is correct? I have seen it used all three ways.

girls basketball
girls' basketball
girl's basketball

Thanks for your help!

[Dayodiola]

I think 'girls basketball' holds no meaning. But the aspect of either the possession of the basketball is for 'girls' or 'a girl' depends on the sentence.

This is how I determine if a sentence is possessive. The statement must appeal to the usage of 'OF' e.g basketball of the girls could be written as 'girls basketball'.

[Diana Lowery]

Sorry if I confused you. I am trying to refer to a team sport. "The girls basketball team won." or
"The girls' basketball team won." or "The girl's basketball team won."

[Bigwig1973]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I think it's fair to say it depends on the context. The apostrophe is used to indicate possession - the basketball team belonging to the girls, not a particular girl, which kind of wants to make me think girls' basketball. On the other hand, the term is so well-known, one wants to not use an apostrophe at all. If it's a particular girl's basketball - like Tom Hank's volleyball named Wilson...I'm trying to think of an alternative - the first thing that comes to mind is the American Legion and their fish fry (they have really good fish and I am hungry and I just tried making battered fried fish at home the other day and it wasn't like theirs ). What else is commonly referred to in the plural form that is also as widely accepted?

[Diana Lowery]

Well, thanks, now I am hungry for fried fish.