LATE RESEARCHES IN BASKETBALL

by

Dr. ‘Forrest C. Allen,
“~" Director of Physical Education,
Varsity Basketball Coach,
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansase-

(Presented to the Men's Athletic Section of the American Association for
Health, Physical Education and Recreation at their national meeting in
San Francisco, California, April 3-6, 1939.)

For years the generally accepted method of choosing a team has been
upon the judgment of the coach, reinforced by the performance of stellar players.
who were outstanding in scoring field goals on the offense and by superior guards
smothering the scoring cpposition. Many times a coach removes a player from the
game merely on the coach's own judgments’ By the same token other players do not
get an opportunity to play because this particular individual did not attract the
coachts attention.

Baseball has had its batting and fielding averages computed for years,
thereby making it easy to weigh the ability of the dominant players in this
sport. Using the same procedure in basketball, it is the opinion of the speaker

‘that g relative rating of basketball players can be hade We call this the
“batting and fielding averages" because this terminology elicits the interest of
these competing players on account of their previous experiences in baseballs
Most every able-bodied boy in America has played either hard ball or soft ball.

~Lthink this is also true in basketball. The problem was to link up the inter-
est of those boys and get them to enter into a schome that indicated their
prowesses definitely in basketball as has been done in baseball.

The development of a list of offensive cloments was the first stcpe
With that idea in mind a list of offensive clements was made and cach activity
or play was weighed subjectively. Tho weight of the item ws carcfully consider-
ed ag it related to an important part of .ffonsive tactics and also insofar as
it d@outeibutod to the execution of sound fundamentals ond to winning successe Of
course, the objective was to stimulate the Icarncr to make as few mistakes as
possible. Experience has shown that it is the repotition of mistakes that de=
feats a player or a teams The same mistake made too many times always proves
disastrous e

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under the heading, "The Kansas Basketball Evaluation Study", is shown
the positive items as opposed to the negative items, Every play of importance,
both in the pesitive and the negative offensive study, has been weighed in
evaluation points. The old kindergarten theory of a good reward for a good deed
and a poor reward for a bad deed has been carricd oute

In the above offensive study the data were collected by former varsity
players well versed in the meaning of these evaluation points, by mature majors
in the Department of Physical Education, and by some other woll qualified student
assistants. Twelve men students wore used in the collection of facts, six fer