BUT IT’S BASKETBALL NOW

 

 

 

JIMMY NEEDLES.

NIBS PRICE.

to high heaven. They hadn’t seen it before, and since it was some-
thing new, at least to tliem, they figured it was illegal.

“Bob Herwig, the big footballer, was playing with us at the time,
and naturally he enjoyed himself hugely. Cage officials permitted
some pretty rough contact, and Bob was all for staying in the East
and playing all our games there. He. liked the rough going.”

Nibs sized it up pretty well when he said the Fast, as a whole,

“has some pretty definite ideas, and the coaches back there don’t

like to change. But because of the success of Western teams in in-

ter sectional games, the East has been forced to change many of its
ideas, not through choice but of necessity.”

Needles, coach of the 36 Olympic Games team concurs with Price
in believing intersectional games have done much to change the style
of play there. “These games have resulted in the East taking up
Western tactics,’ he ‘declared. “A few years ago the game as it
was played there was so rough that in some cases the man was in
the basket instead of the ball, or so it seemed.”

a ~ ~ ~ ;

As another example of the reluctance of the East to change its
style of play, Jimmy pointed to the one-handed shot, made famous
when Hank Luisetti and his barnstorming Stanford team invaded New
York some six years back and snapped Long Island’s winning streak
at something like 44 games. Some Eastern coaches went on record
as saying they’d die first rather than change from the two-handed
style of shooting.. One*coach did; he passed away several years
ago and to the bitter end never conceded anything to the one-
handed shot.

In his New York outburst Dr. Allen again broached the subject of
raising the height. of the baskets to 12 feet. He fears the present
10-foot level] of the hoops is all to the advantage of the big men, the
cagers ranging from six feet three inches upward. As he puts it, the
increased height would give the smaller men a chance and also make
better ‘players of the giants.

Here, Dr. Allen runs into violent disagreement from Megsrs.
Needles and Price.

“The increased height simply would put a greater penalty on the
small man,” declared Needles, a statement echoed by Price.

“T ‘can’t get this point,” said Price. “The tall boys would benefit,
and the extra two feet only would make it tougher on the smaller
men. Take my boy, Chuck Hanger, for example. He’s six feet five
inches tall, and the extra effort which would entail him going two feet
higher on lay-ins and follow shots would be nothing as compared to
that which a smaller man would have to make.”

- «And Needles, whose small U. S. F. team was soundly whipped by
California’s towering team this week, pleads, “Don’t make it any
tougher on the smaller boys.”