What Does 'Ball Up Top' Mean? The Basketball-Inspired Catchphrase Used By Men To Cope With Their Mental Health Explained

Whether you think the men's mental health crisis is an issue worth addressing or if you think it's a problem they create themselves, there is no doubt that many men have some truly terrible coping strategies for any traumas they might encounter in their lives.

But when you see a man down bad on the internet, you can be sure that he has a solid basketball quote that comes in clutch every time he wants to signal strength and nonchalance.

But gone are the days when men say F it, we ball,, there is a new pick-up basketball phrase has slowly made its way into mainstream internet culture, with one devastating tale of a loving girl-dad's betrayal paving the way for the catchphrase. Here's a brief history of the term Ball Up Top.

Where Does 'Ball Up Top' Mean, And Where Did The Phrase Come From?

"Ball up top" is a phrase used in pick-up or one-on-one basketball games, where a missed shot or a rebound means that the basketball must be taken back to the "top of the key" or beyond the 3-point mark before a basket can be scored. So, "ball up top" is what players typically call out to indicate that the ball must be returned to the top to continue a match.

While the phrase is a well-known street basketball term, it also came to be used as a metaphor or a catchphrase in internet circles in the early 2020s. In this new context, "ball up top" meant to take things in stride, or to simply move on to the next issue at hand.

A popular early adopter of the phrase was X user @285Slim, who is so known for repeatedly using the phrase "ball up top" that his followers have come to associate the phrase with him personally. In a viral tweet posted back in September 2023, he wrote, "I WANT some p****. You NEED the money. So save me the sob story and let’s run it. Ball up top."

What's The Story About The 'Black Girl Dad' Saying 'She Ain't Mine, Ball Up Top'?

In July 2024, newly minted father and X user @kfmsr posted a photo of him holding his newborn daughter in the hospital alongside a caption that read, "Best moment of my life captured at the perfect time." The happy moment, however, was marred by a quote tweet that came nearly two months later. The new post read, "She ain't mine. Ball up top🚶🏿."

Things got worse after many internet users realized that @kfmsr had been making sappy girl dad tweets about how excited he was to welcome his baby girl into the world and dote on her, with X user @dyingscribe posting screenshots from @kfmsr's account with the caption, "Cruel f-ing world, dawg."

How Did Internet Users React To The Phrase 'Ball Up Top'?

Many internet users fixated on @kfmsr's heartbreaking but ultimately overly casual reaction to learning some devastating news, and used the incident to discuss how men tend to cope with traumatic experiences in their lives. Soon after the saga unfolded, X user @2ndCaptainFly wrote, "'Ball up top' is a crazy phrase to tweet after the most traumatic thing in your life," and gathered over 90,000 likes.

Some internet users began making sad art about the incident, including animator and X user @sleepyghostmp3, posted pixel art showing a sad Mario dribbling alongside the text "She ain't mine, ball up top."

For the full history of "ball up top," be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.