4. Developnent of a More Varied Style of Play.

One criticisn which spéctators frequently nake of present day basket»
ball is that is has become "stereotyped" and in the -nain. is played on only
one-half of the court. Under the elinination, it early developed that a_
_ tean ahead in the score in the ‘second half could expect to have its oppon~
ents play it all over the court. This necessitated the preparation of a
strong back court gane in order to conbat such tactics. Further, since
the defenses were schooled to go out when necessary, the use of such tac-
tics at any tine, in order to change the pace of the play when desired, ..'.
has now become common. The obvious effect of such tactics being to open
up the play, no conplaint is longer heard of "stereotyped basket -ball."

5s Equalization of Ball Possession.

‘With the center jump in use, all’ other things being equal, the tean .
with the taller center will generally get the tips With centers of equal.
jumping ability, it is entirely a’natter of chance, In the one case, &
tean- is penalized through no intrinsic fault of its own (precisely as in .
the old days a’tean was penalized unfairly because it did not happen to
have the best foul shooter). And where the jumpers are of equal ability,
the matter of ball possession depends mainly upon pure lucke Ee

The result has been a scouring of ‘the highways and byways for sky~ -
scraper centers who in many cases (generally, it nay be said, on losing...
teans) are used in the lineup for their jumping ability, despite their
lack of skill in the other departments of the gane. Where the tip is
used, this nust be done. Where the tip is not used, a tall man. does:
not vlay unless ‘he is'a basket ball player. The advantage of height.
will always endure in basket ball, when it is coupled with genuine bas~
ket ball abilitye Where it is not, however, there is no point to em
ploying it simply for the purpose of protection in a department of .the »
gane which does not truly reflect the actual relative merits of the ~
opposing teanse - : BOLI YSGRS Gri . . sad (7

 ‘{he elinination of the tip does away with all this. , And, in re-.
turn, it equalizes ball possession. Every tine a team scores, the oppone
ent is given the opportunity likewise to score if it cane Whether it can
or not depends upon the relative skills of the’ two téarge And this, it
is submitted, is the true spirit of the ganee ern

_ Agide from these considerations, however, it is. undoubtedly true
that this elenent of equalized ball possession has resulted in closer
and nore hard fought contests. And this fact has likewise done a great
deal toward popularizing the elimination.

6 The addition of actual playing tine.

- §tatistics have shown that the use of the elimination will add fron
six to eight minutes of actual playing tine to each game. Ina gane which,
in comparison with other najor sports, is. all too short in this respect;
this is a decided advantage from the standpoint of public interest. ©

   

A natural corollary to the added playing time is the element of" *.~
higher scoring per team per gane. In 1934, the last center tip year in

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