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BASKETBALL REBOUNDS
Dave Walsh Urges Court Coaches to Devote More Attention to Defense
By Irving T, Marsh,

A plea to basketball coaches to direct a little more attention to defense
was made by Dave Walsh, veteran arbiter and now associate director of the Col-
lege Basketball Officials Bureau, at the meeting of the Metropolitan Basketball
Writers Association yesterday at the Lincoln, and his plea aroused a storm of
controversy that continued far beyond meeting time,

Putting the issue squarely up to the coaches and expressing, he insisted,
_ @ purely personal opinion, he declared that basketball has become almost exclu-
sively a "firehorse" game in which the value of the field goal has been cheap-
ened and the size of the court has been cut exactly in half because most teams
do not begin their defense until the offensive unit crosses the mid-court line.

"Let's pick 'em up all over the court," he said, "and then I think you'll
have a better game all round, We have become too offensive-minded, and any g@me
is as good as its defense, That's true in baseball, football or any other game
you can mention, This 'firehorse' basketball has outmoded the dribbler and the
pivoter, There's no sense any more in dribbling and pivoting, the really skill-
ful and scientific things in basketball, when all you have to do is stand out
near or at mid-court and sink 'em with set shots,"

Oklahoma Aggies Aid Argument

Then, in answer to the argument that spectators seem to like "racehorse"
basketball and t'hell with the defense, he vointed to Oklahoma A, and M,, which
he thought, was ghe best defensive team that has appeared here this year.

"And the customers liked them," he added,

Walsh's talk, on the senersl subject of "What's Wrong With Basketball?"
ended a program that also had Lon Jourdet, veteran Pennsylvania coach; John
(Honey) Russell, of Seton Hall; Albert Gorton, of Panzer, and Howard Cann, of
N. Y. U., as speakers, It preceded an argument in which Walsh had a grand op-
portunity to test his own defense, because most of the coaches assembled hopped
right into the fray,

 

Jourdet making his first appearance before the writers, saic his Pennsyl-
vania team was going to be much better than last year and he hoped that it might
be a contender in the Fastern Leasue tournament this year. But Dartmouth, cham-
pion for the last three years, is stronger than last year, Princeton undeniably
is and Cornell has a good club, he admitted,

Gorton and Russell, neighbors from the Jersey Oranges whose teams do not
meet each other, discussed the problems of the small-college coach, and Gorton
was a little downcast at his team's set-back by John Marshall last Saturday af-
ter Panzer had run up forty-four straight victories, Russell, the old pro play-
er, declared he still was wondering how Seton Hall has managed to win thirty-two
in a row,

Cann Explains N, Y. U. Success

Cann, explaining what "made N, Y, U. click," attributed it to the Violets!
ability to keep moving and to condition, revealing that his players engage in
plenty of calisthenic drills as well as primarily basketball workouts, That, he
thought, was really the secret of N, Y. U.'s success,