Evening star. [volume], December 06, 1936, Page 2, Image 90

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
The big dock in Madison Square Garden showed only ninety
seconds left to play. We were three points behind Duquesne.
the team which had broken our winning streak the year before.
Now Duquesne was leading, 34-31, and a Damocles sword of
fleeting time hung over Long Island University’s stringof 17 victories.
Sensational long shots by Duquesne were turning a close, excit
ing basketball game into a rout, and a record crowd of 18,000 which
jammed every comer of the Garden was yelling itself hoarse.
Then, with the suddenness of a rat-tatting machine gun, it hap
pened. Jules Bender heaved one from near the center of the court. It
went in clean, and the crowd yelled.
Fifty seconds from victory — and one point ahead — Duquesne
tried to freeze the ball. It failed and we gained possession. The
Duquesne defense was tight, and our players couldn’t get near the
basket. So Ken Norton shot a long one from the comer. The ball
hit the rim — hesitated on the point of going in — and then dropped
out. But Marius Russo had come charging in swiftly. As the ball
fell he leaped high into the air and batted it through the net for the
two points which gave L.I.U. the victory after as exciting a game of
basketball as was ever played.
It is basketball like that which has made it one of the nation’s H
outstanding Winter sports. It is basketball which features the H
offense and which produces long shots. Basketball has opened up, M
and the long shot has popularized the game just as the forward pass H
aided football. V
But it wasn’t until a New York sports writer turned promoter and H
leased Madison Square Garden for college basketball two years ago
that the game was catapulted into national headlines. Ned Irish, as a H
basketball writer, was intrigued by the crowd-appealing possibilities jH
of the sport. New York University, which lost only one game during ™
the 1933-34 season and was recognized as Eastern champion, par
ticularly captured his fancy. With N.Y.U. as the attraction, he
visioned capacity crowds at the Garden.
Moving into the Garden for its big games the next winter, New
York University played spine-tingling offensive basketball. It won
all its contests, trouncing teams like Notre Dame, Purdue and
Kentucky to win the National crown. Every time N.Y.U. appeared
in the Garden there was a jam at the box office. Last year, Irish
added two thousand seats and N. Y. U. still drew capacity crowds.
There wasn’t a game in Jjt
which N.Y.U. appeared that
didn’t thrill the spectators. ^ Y #
N.Y.U. won more games in /
the second half, by quick /
\ l'x A /
Drawing by
C R. Chickwing
' A cm* Photo
THE DUQUESNE GAME — IT NEARLY HALTED LONG ISLAND'S WINNING STREAK
mo OT IT!
Long shots have opened up basketball and made it
a major winter sport. The coach of an unbeaten team
tells how he discovered the secret of shooting to win
by Clair Bee
H»o4 Bmkmtball Comtk t! Lmng hiond Unlrardty, Catttm Ckmmhm *t 1936
spurts featuring long shots, than perhaps any
other team in the country.
Against Purdue, N.Y.U. came from behind
with an amazing string of long shots, to gain
a big lead midway in the second half. But
Purdue was a good spurting team, too.
Madison Square Garden housed 18,000
screaming lunatics while Purdue sank long
shot after long shot to crawl up from far be
hind. But N.Y.U. scored a long shot in the
closing seconds and saved the game.
Purdue was typical of the offensive basket
ball being played in the Middle West. After
watching Purdue in 1935 and again last
Winter, Eastern teams did less passing and
more shooting. Coaches recognized the need
for opening up the attack, but they needed
players who could shoot. And there were too
few to go around. Most athletes did not know
how to sink long shots.
The greater percentage today still do not
know how. Line up 1,000 basketball players,
and you probably will find that only a hand
ful will shoot correctly. That rather bears out
the old axiom that “a great shot must be
bom.” It should, but it doesn’t. Every man
who plays basketball for a team I coach
must be a great shot. I say that because a
shooter can be made, simply by correcting a
fault which is unusually common. But to cor
rect that fault you must make him do some
thing exactly contrary to natural instinct.
The next time you go to a basketball game,
watch each athlete as he shoots for the basket.
See if you can discover what he does in
correctly that makes him miss consistently; or
what he does correctly which makes the ball
go into the net. And yet seeing just what
) makes a great shot great is the hardest thing
in the world. I spent two years studying one
player before I discovered the secret.
Years ago, when I coached the Ryder Col
| lege basketball team, a rather unusual fellow
( came to me named Louis "Sheriff” Zara. He
was one of those high school wonders who
averaged 16 and 18 points in every game
Zara was the greatest natural shot I had
ever seen, up to that time. He seemingly
couldn’t miss. I determined to study him, to
find out what made him great. I sent him to
the foul line, where he shot as many as 125
straight fouls. Fifty and sixty consecutive
shots were easy. And for the life of me I
couldn’t see where he differed from the other
players. And then, after watching every
basketball move Zara made for two years, I
learned the secret. All the players on my
squad, except Zara, kept their eyes on the
ball when they shot. Zara never looked at the
ball; HE TRAINED HIS EYES ON THE BASKET.
“Keep your eye on the ball!” is a fun
damental rule for almost every sport. Zara
taught me that successful basketball shoot
ing depends on doing the exact opposite.
With Zara's secret I immediately changed
my whole scheme of basketball-teaching. I
dispensed with the almost universal practice
of short passes to bring the ball under the
basket before shooting. I trained my players
to glue their eyes to the rim of the basket.
Then I marked zones on the floor, and made
the athletes shoot from every zone.
It takes patience, but I insist that I can
make any lad who shows an inclination for
athletics into a great basketball shot.
ine l.i.u. DasxeiDan teams oi me last
few seasons have made great shooting reputa
tions. Averaging more than fifty points in
each game, L.I.U. far outdistanced other
teams in the East in point scoring. Every
member of those teams was a "made” shooter.
They did not come to me as “natural shots.”
And yet, after they were taught Zara’s secret,
I had enough confidence in them to issue
orders to shoot for the basket every time an
opening appeared, no matter how far from
the basket they were. That’s why there is so
much shooting from as far back as midcourt
by L.I.U.
I dunned into my players the idea of shoot,
shoot, shoot; I criticized them for passing in
stead of shooting when openings appeared —
and, as a result, they won the Eastern Cham
pionship last year.
The long shots which won the Duquesne
game and permitted us to continue through
the season unbeaten paid dividends on all the
hours spent drilling my players to “shoot it.”
Copyright, 1*34, United Newspapers Magazine Corporation