See how we ran

[BludOrange]

Tim Hardaway, who has one of the one of the best crossovers ever...the UTEP 2 Step, has gone on record as saying he learned parts of his from Pearl Washington's crossover.

Hardaway says it in the video above. Interview with The Pearl is towards the end of the video.

 

[domestu]

The shot clock was installed to quicken the pace of the game but the offensive tempo of today's game is actually much slower than it was before the shot clock. Teams used to get the ball and immediately try take advantage of any mismatch or opportunity that favored them.

Today's coaches have installed offensive game plans that concentrate on running a half court offense that utilizes all of the time on the clock and they want their players to do this on every possession. Teams no longer look to take advantage of early opportunities to score and often pass up wide open looks on the perimeter or a mismatch inside because not enough time has been run off the clock. This tendency to not even think about shooting until the shot clock has wound down to under ten seconds leads to a lot frantic off-balance last second shots and shot clock violations.

The shot clock has eliminated stalling where teams sit on the lead and just pass the ball endlessly but it definitely hasn't speeded up the pace of the game. College hoops was much more up-tempo and featured a lot more fast breaks in the old days. I started going to games in the mid-50s and scoring has never been lower than it is today. Teams scored a lot more points when the NCAA was using a 45 second clock between 1985 and 1993. I believe the offensive philosophy that so many coaches have adopted toward utilizing the entire shot clock has resulted in the low scoring games that we see today.

 

[BludOrange]

 

[IthacaMatt]

I has Accurater over to watch the Duke game last Saturday. Before the game I showed him an old VHS tape I have about the first ten years of the Big East. He was no living here at that period and missed the Pearl Washington- Sherman Douglas Derrick Coleman- Billy Owens- Rony Seikaly Stevie Thompson years an d he was dazzled by all the spectacular plays they made, especially the pear and Sherman's "hike to Stevie vs. Indiana. Of course it was a highlight film and everything they did worked. But I couldn't help but notice that I hadn't seen plays like that in along time.

I decided to see what was on You Tube from that period.

Here's a highlight clip of the Pearl:

He's one of The General, but much of it is NBA highlights, (dig that hook shot!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwy915OTHsI

He's a 10 minute SU "Dunk Tape":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__21Q_uZCU

And here's a bit more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIfaQlW-A1U

The thing that continues to amaze me about Pearl highlight tapes is how well he dribbled in traffic. He was like a running back, and used to cut into the traffic and split defenders more often than trying to go around them or dribble to the outside. I think a big part of his uncanny ability to score was that he seemed to play almost like a lefty - he really favored driving and dribbling to that side. And well, his one handed cross over and changes of direction were just legendary.

 

[SWC75]

The thing that continues to amaze me about Pearl highlight tapes is how well he dribbled in traffic. He was like a running back, and used to cut into the traffic and split defenders more often than trying to go around them or dribble to the outside. I think a big part of his uncanny ability to score was that he seemed to play almost like a lefty - he really favored driving and dribbling to that side. And well, his one handed cross over and changes of direction were just legendary.

He also had a very low center of gravity and dribbled close to the floor. Nobody could get to the ball to flick it away and he could turn on a dime.

 

[SWC75]

My freshman year was '87-'88. The team that year could put up tremendous point totals. The number of dunks per game would probably blow the minds of the younger board members on here. I remember someone used to keep track of dunks in the games with signs, like the K's for strikeouts in baseball games. I seem to recall that they were at 10 or 12 dunks in the Michigan game. It was really incredible how quickly that team could go up and down the court.

It was a great time to be an SU sports fan, with the undefeated football team, the high-flying hoops team and the Gait bros, et al on the Lax team.

MONSTER DUNKS!!!!

 

[dollarbill44]

The shot clock was installed to quicken the pace of the game but the offensive tempo of today's game is actually much slower than it was before the shot clock. Teams used to get the ball and immediately try take advantage of any mismatch or opportunity that favored them.

Today's coaches have installed offensive game plans that concentrate on running a half court offense that utilizes all of the time on the clock and they want their players to do this on every possession. Teams no longer look to take advantage of early opportunities to score and often pass up wide open looks on the perimeter or a mismatch inside because not enough time has been run off the clock. This tendency to not even think about shooting until the shot clock has wound down to under ten seconds leads to a lot frantic off-balance last second shots and shot clock violations.

The shot clock has eliminated stalling where teams sit on the lead and just pass the ball endlessly but it definitely hasn't speeded up the pace of the game. College hoops was much more up-tempo and featured a lot more fast breaks in the old days. I started going to games in the mid-50s and scoring has never been lower than it is today. Teams scored a lot more points when the NCAA was using a 45 second clock between 1985 and 1993. I believe the offensive philosophy that so many coaches have adopted toward utilizing the entire shot clock has resulted in the low scoring games that we see today.

I think you're right about the speed of the game then vs. now. The one thing I will add is that the shot clock was really to counter Dean Smith's stall ball in the early 80s. He would get an 8 point lead and then just play 4-corners to run the game out. I remember a game where they ran something like 8 minutes off without taking a shot. That was actually what led to Jim Valvano to institute intentional fouls to get the ball away.

 

[domestu]

Teams incorporated stalling tactics for a number reasons. Some of the most notorious examples of the early 80s occurred against Virginia when Ralph Sampson was there. Teams with far less talent would try to slash the number of possessions to enable them to beat a superior squad. Sampson was the college player of the year for three consecutive seasons and the stalling that went on in Virginia's games caused a national outcry that led to the shot clock.

Most of the stalling tactics back then involved teams that were leading just passing the ball back and forth in the second half to protect their lead. Ironically, the most famous game that Dean Smith went into the four corners was the 1977 title contest when he had his Phil Ford go into the delay and Marquette came back to win the championship.

I went to a game in Dayton, Ohio in the early 60s where Wake Forest coach Bones McKinney had his team go into the stall immediately after winning the opening tap. Wake's lineup was loaded with talent like All-American Lenny Chappell but their big guys were foul-prone so Bones had his point guard dribble away for over fourteen minutes at center court to start the game. The stalling went on so long that the home crowd eventually stopped booing and sat there in stunned silence. Even though play didn't begin until late in the first half, there was plenty of action the rest of the way and it ended up being a higher scoring game than a lot of ones I watch today.

Wake Forest had a great team that went to the Final Four in 1962. The point guard was named Billy Packer.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Teams incorporated stalling tactics for a number reasons. Some of the most notorious examples of the early 80s occurred against Virginia when Ralph Sampson was there. Teams with far less talent would try to slash the number of possessions to enable them to beat a superior squad. Sampson was the college player of the year for three consecutive seasons and the stalling that went on in Virginia's games caused a national outcry that led to the shot clock.

Wake Forest had a great team that went to the Final Four in 1962. The point guard was named Billy Packer.

Good story! People used to try to stall the Wooden UCLA teams, too. He would denounce stall ball in post-game interviews, but I got a sense that he did that because he thought it might work.

 

[domestu]

Stalling tactics were used by many of UCLA's opponents over the years but they usually weren't successful against Wooden's teams. I remember USC using the stall to pull off a major upset of the Bruins in 1969. That was one of only two losses during Lew Alcindor's college career.

It might have been the only way some opposing coaches felt they could beat UCLA but when teams continued stalling when they were behind by double digits it bordered on absurdity. Some of the games I went to that featured long periods of inaction were like watching a chess match.

The beginning of that Wake Forest game at Dayton was unreal. Bones McKinney wanted to keep his big guys out of foul trouble and after getting the opening tip absolutely nothing happened during the first fifteen minutes. Billy Packer would dribble for a while and then stop and hold the ball. I remember a picture in local paper the next day of the scoreboard showing five minutes on the clock and the score was 0 to 0. Another photo showed Packer sitting on the ball near mid-court.

 

[joct]

I never understood how basketball got away without a shot clock for so long. You need to give the defense an ability to win something. Without the clock, why would you ever take a shot you didn't like...especially if you have the lead?

No shot clock in basketball to me is like not having a 4th down in football or called strikes in baseball.

 

[Cheriehoop]

I never understood how basketball got away without a shot clock for so long. You need to give the defense an ability to win something. Without the clock, why would you ever take a shot you didn't like...especially if you have the lead?

No shot clock in basketball to me is like not having a 4th down in football or called strikes in baseball.

That's what Dean Smith did with his 4 corners once he got a lead and why the shot clock was eventually enacted. The womens game actually had it much earlier(30 seconds in 1969-1970) than the guys college game who started with a 45 second shot clock in 1986.