Basket Ball becomes more popular each season and its welfare
naturally becomes of more interest. This questionnaire was sent out
in good faith and in most cases was answered in the same spirit,

In no wise is there a political maneuver or propaganda to be furthered,
The purpose is to ascertain the amount of accord and to try to es-=
tablish grounds for absolute accord in interpretation of the rules,
and with this in view, the questionnaire was sent to coaches and
officials, In Basket Ball as in any other activities there will
always be honest differences of opinion but established facts will
tend to temper and lessen.these differences, Basket Ball is sup-
posed to be a non-contact game and in bodily contact or blocking,
there comes contention as to responsibility. The outstanding fact

to be established is that both the offensive and defensive men have
equal rights and to define these rights, In face of common limita-
tions of expression, the attempt was made to word the questions so
that the answers would be clearcut yes or no. The questionnaire was
divided into two parts namely blocking and miscellaneous, for cross
checking, To the ordinary fan, the officiating is the only draw-

back to the game but to the students of the game there are two

menaces to its welfare, blocking by both defense and offense and stal-
ling. It is the hardest game to officiate and this feature serves

to confuse players and coaches as well as spectators, hence this
attempted help to the game,

The pivot play was ruled out of one professional league and is
not clearly defined consistently in the minds of officials, players,
or coaches. In conversation with one of our leading officials I
have heard that the offensive pivot man could back the defensive
man off the court (while assuming an offensive position) and then
hastened to the conflicting statement that the offensive man should -
stop backing as soon as he made contact with the défensive man,

Also I was left to wonder if the pivot man could flail his elbows
back and forth because he kept his hands on his hips or if a pivot
man could jump back against his opponent after passing out the ball.
Opposed to the preceding favor to the offensive man is the privilege
given a defensive man to block out a dribbler or cutter. This
inconsistency of first giving all advantage to the offensive man

and then switching to give the advantage to the defensive man con-
fuses everyone, ecither on or off the court and is the cause of

90% of trouble in officiating,

Tie matter of stalling is strictly one of coaching and the
National Coaches Association has defined it as a lack of aggressive
action by the low score team, so that anyone should be able to de-
note the guilty parties, Along with uncertain officiating, massed
or zone defense, the leading team cannot be blamed for hesitating |
to risk their earned advantage by continued aggressive, energy-
spending action while the defensive team passively waits in ad-
vantageous position,

Compend of answers

1. If offensive and dcfensive men are to be placed on equal bases,
either should be allowed to assume any position on the floor, so long
as he does not project himself against another, Any man should be
entitled to a position by priority. Some may question the intent of
assuming a position, but a player in changing his assumed position in
order to make or avoid contact brings up a second question. Obviously
then, it is policy to allow a man to stand in his assumed position,

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