Pearl C University Daily Minute Monday, March 22, 1927
By DICK BROWN
(Daily Kansan Sports Editor)
After watching the NCAA tournament in Kansas City Friday and Saturday, there are just two suggestions I have for college basketball coaches:
Move the goals to 12 feet and force the offensive team to shoot the ball within 24 seconds after receiving the ball or lose possession.
With all the clamor about Wilt Chamberlain dunking the ball, little is said of the fact that every team has many players who can do the same, if in less spectacular fashion.
This is not the game of basketball. When over half of the players can simply jump and cram the ball through the basket, it ceases to be a game.
Wilt Would Have Trouble
North Carolina had no less than 8 of the 12-man traveling squad that could stuff the ball while the Jayhawks had 6 men—Chambleain, Loneski, Lou Johnson, Monte Johnson, Green and King—who actually stuffed the ball in pre-game workouts.
With 12-foot goals, perhaps Chamberlain would still be able to stuff the ball. But it would require such timing and all out effort that his stuff shots would be few and far between.
The coaches' viewpoint today seems to be in legislating against the big man. What better way to do it? A further advantage of the 12-foot goals is the greater arch it would take to get the ball to the goal.
So much for looking after the little men of the game.
This would result in fewer blocked shots by the big men and permit the little man to regain some of his lost stature.
Oh Woe For Spectators
After watching the stalling game employed by both KU and North Carolina, I was mighty sick of it. Granted it was smart basketball under the conditions, and I am not condemning the coaches for using that type of strategy under the present rules.
in WOKE or SPEC!
But you can play the game and robbed the spectators of much of the action and thrills expected of a championship game.
Contrast this with the 24-second rule of the professional basketball teams. The wide open play and the natural crowd pleasing style of basketball played as a result are a tribute to the intelligence of the professional coaches.
College basketball coaches rejected a recommendation for a 30-second rule now in use by the International Federation and the Olympic Games, which would require a team to shoot within 30 seconds after gaining possession of the ball.
Basketball was not designed and should not be played with the best team determined by how well it can stall. With all the coaches' efforts to cut down the effectiveness of the big man, namely Wilt, they might think a little about what they are doing to the game.
Ideas Not New
These arguments are not new; it was KU's own Phog Allen who first appealed for the 12-foot baskets and a rule to allow teams a limited amount of time with the ball has been discussed for years.
However, it's time the coaches did something now to restore the balance and all-out play of basketball.
Speed Boat In Record Try
LONDON — (UP) — Water speed champion Donald Campbell of England plans to drive his jet boat "Bluebird" through the 250-mile-per-hour water barrier somewhere in New York state this summer. Campbell disclosed he has been invited by Governor Averell Harriman to make the attempt in New York state. Final decision of the New York state site has not been made as yet.
—(Daily Kansan photo by Ralph Butler)
WHOOPEE, I'M A DUNKER—Maurice King, KU's great senior guard, sails past the San Francisco Don's Al Dunbar to score a left hand hook shot. King scored 13 points as the Jayhawkers overpowered the Dons 80-56 in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament.
Kansas City Finals Are Hex To KU
The only national championship hung up by the Jayhawkers was in 1952 when they trounced St. John's 80-63 in Seattle.
North Carolina Coach Frank McGuire gained a measure of revenge in this game, as it was his St. John's team that was beaten by KU in that game. Coach Harp was assistant coach then to Phog Allen.
Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium continued its strange hex over the Jayhawkers. This is the third time Kansas has been in the finals of the NCAA in the Auditorium and the third time they have lost.
Coach Hart has had more active experience in NCAA tournament finals than any other man in history. He was a guard and co-captain when the Jayhawkers were beaten 60-42 in the 1940 finals by a fine Indiana team.
Haro Is Calm
Then in 1952 and 1953 he was assistant KU coach before taking over the head coaching position this season.
Coach Harp was one of the few visibly calm persons in the KU dressing room after the North Carolina game, although how he maintained his composure under the barrage of newsmen's questions no one knows.
Asked how he felt, Harp said, "I feel like I've gone through the NCAA championship game in three overtimes and lost."
Most of the players felt considerably worse, and it was some time before Coach Harp could get them completely calmed down and ready to go back to the hotel.
Even the crowd was quiet after the game as the KU players huddled disbelievingly on the court waiting their turn to receive the second place plaques.
Seniors Heartbroken
Misery was plainly visible in the faces of Jayhawker supporters. But certainly no place could it have been more intense than in the hearts of the seven KU seniors who were playing their last game for "Big Red," bowing out as the nation's No. 2 team instead of national champions.
"I didn't see the shot but when I turned around someone said to me, 'He missed it,' and I checked the scoreboard quickly. The free throw had nothing to do with the final outcome of the game, however," he said.
Wilt In Dispute
Apparently the Jayhawkers couldn't believe their defeat as they stood in shocked silence while worshiping fans pressed close to offer meaningless words.
In the second overtime period, Wilt and the Tar Heel's Bob Cunningham almost came to blows as both coaches and players from the benches swarmed onto the floor. Cunningham, in coming into help stop Chamberlain, fouled the Big Dipper and they exchanged heated words.
As Wilt was shooting his free throw, the loud speaker suddenly blared forth and Wilt's shot fell short of the mark.
The two major elements in Trinidad's roughly 700,000 population are of African and East-Indian descent. The Indian group, now some 250- 000 strong, grew out of heavy 19th-century imports for plantation labor.
At the time, Coach Harp was on his feet and addressing the scorer's table.