9

‘Coach Bill Chandler, after the Marquette-Stanford game, said:
"About the center jump, I am quite enthusiastic about eliminating it.
Since our game I am more convinced that this change should be included
in the National Rules."

Coach George Edwards of Missouri wrote that, as a result of the
preliminary announcement of this experiment which appeared in our bul-
letin No. 2, several games were played under this plan with results
that were highly complimentary.

Coach W.H. Browne of the University of Nebraska wrote: "I made
a special effort to ascertain what different individuals and groups
thought of the change and found the sentiment about equally divided.
None strongly opposed the change, while. many were ready to accept the
change as an improvement to the game, The ones not ready to accept
this innovation desired to see more contests of this nature before
making a definite decision."

Dr. F.C. Allen, after watching the Nebraska-Stanford game (he had
previously seen the Stanford-White Eagle Oilers game), commented that
he was beginning to like the idea of no center jump. His one critie-
cism was that the officials should not handle the ball after a goal
was made in order to make possible a quick counter attack.

LW. St. John of Ohio State, after reviewing the bulletin on the
experiment, wrote: “Ohio State played an opening game about three
years ago under similar rules and liked the plan very much. I am
hopeful that the National Basketball Rules Committee may see fit to
adopt this modification for the coming year."

The coaches of the Northern Division of the Pacific Coast Confer-
ence were just luke warm on the modification rule. Their opinions
were divided and the group as a whole voted to neither approve or op-
pose the change. The experiment was not tried in the North,

7. The question was asked, Does the elimination of the center
jump entail too much additional strain upon the players? The three
reports which voted against the center jump throughout said yes, while
all others said no, The evidence is all subjective of course, but
the testimony of the players themselves is significant. In the play-
off for the P.C.C,. championship, which was won by U. 8S. C., the center
jump was used in all three games because the northern division of the
conference had used the center jump all season, U.S.C., the southern
division champion, had played all season without the center jump, con—
‘sequently they were in’fairly good position to judge the effects of
the two methods of play upon themselves. It may be that they were so
much in favor of the elimination of the center jump that their opin-
ions were prejudiced, but these were their conclusions: Guttero, the
U.S.C. center, was outspoken in his belief that*’he was much more fati-
gued by the use of the center jump. He felt that the continuous jump—
ing took so much energy that he could not play nearly as good a game
otherwise. He controlled the tip throughout the series, The other
players were not sure that they noticed any difference, Their only
coment was that they took several bad spills in crashing for the ball
which slowed them up for a time and may have hindered their game some—
what, There was only one high-school coach who reported that he felt
the game without the tip was more strenuous. From all appearances the
game is so much faster and more continuous without the tip that one
‘naturally concludes that it is more strenuous on the players. To off-
set such a possibility, it was suggested by several that the intermis—
sion between halves be extended to fifteen minutes and that between
quarters to two minutes. These suggestions seem to have merit for a
number of reasons. Experiments on fatigue under the two methods of
play will be conducted at Stanford during the spring quarter.