point shot changed college basketball
It would be a place without Stephen Curry shooting a small school like Davidson to unknown NCAA tournament heights (2008). Where Northwestern State couldn't eliminate Iowa on a last gasp, fade away three pointer (2006), or Siena likely doesn't outlast Ohio State in double overtime (2009). For all the uncool kids, the three point shot has been the greatest equalizer since the rock guitar.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the trey, and, as we conclude this season, think how much more predictable every step of this Big Dance would be without it.
Basically, it would be a much blander world. A world without rainbows.
Not embraced at first
"I'm living off the three point shot; that's what fed me growing up," laughed Duke guard Seth Curry, whose father, Dell, was a great NBA sniper (ranked 32nd on the career three point list) and brother Stephen holds the NCAA record for three pointers made in a season (162 in 2007 08). "I don't know what my life would be without the three point line, but I'm glad it's there."
"It would be a much different game," said Bob Steitz, whose late father, Ed, as onetime head of college basketball's rules committee, is credited with installing the shot throughout the NCAA.
"You see flashbacks of great tournament games before the three point shot, and you'll see offenses actually passing up 18 foot wide open shots to try to get the ball closer to the basket. And you see defenses really packed in, protecting the key and protecting the basket."
Generations of players now have been processed through the mill of wholesale jerseys college basketball knowing only the Siren's call of the three point line.
But not so long ago, the extra credit shot was seen as the ruination of the game, a gimmick that would turn it into a full court turkey shoot.
A quarter century later, the shot having bonded so successfully with the DNA of basketball, it is difficult to remember the loud objections that greeted it at birth.
"Twenty five years ago, people thought it was a bad shot; they thought it was going to kill the game," said Florida coach Billy Donovan. Playing for Rick Pitino at Providence in 1986 87, Donovan was one of the first to take full advantage of a line that was 19 feet, 9 inches distant (it has since been moved back a foot). He still holds the Friars' single season three point shot record. Not surprisingly, his Gators cheap jerseys regularly live or die by the shot.
One of the loudest enemies was then Indiana coach Bobby Knight. "The place for the three point shot is between the reptile cages and the lion cages in the Lincoln Park zoo," he grumped way back when. Odd how he came to appreciate the shot once dead eye Steve Alford came to Bloomington.
"All the polls taken, people were not in favor of that shot," said Steitz, an associate athletic director at Villanova.
"Some of (the criticism) got personal," Steitz said. "My dad let that run right off his shoulders. For the rest of the family, that kind of hurt. Over the course of time, this thing evolved and coaches learned how to exploit it, and it changed the game just the way my dad thought it would which was really, really satisfying."
Soon enough, coaches had to put away their contempt and adapt.
An equalizing shot
What they discovered was that a shooter with range was pure gold. They didn't have to be CPAs to recognize that there was great value in scoring three points on a shot rather than two.
Every coach had his a ha moment. When Dennis Scott arrived at Georgia Tech in 1987 88, it was a revelation for coach wholesale nfl jerseys Bobby Cremins. "Two weeks after I got here, Bobby's whole perspective changed," Scott said. "Plenty of times, I remember early on I'd hear him yell: 'No, no, no oh, good shot.' Because he hadn't seen anybody shoot from that distance every game."
Those who called the game also had to alter outlooks as the shot went from a curiosity to an essential.
"We used to be a little more in awe: 'Hey, that was a threeeee!'" said CBS Sports' Jim Nantz. "As you came to realize how they were making it with regularity cheap nfl jerseys and how teams had perfected it, I think you had to temper your enthusiasm a little bit more."
The shooting from downtown revitalization complete, the once cursed three point shot is an element as central to the game as hardwood and tin whistles.
It has grown to become the purest expression of a shooter's vanity, a shot that every mother's son and daughter wants to try as soon as they are strong enough to heave the ball downrange.
Seth Curry said his dad wouldn't let him even attempt a shot outside the arc until he was in middle school, insisting that his son perfect his form from close in. But, "I tried to sneak them in when he wasn't out there," he confessed. At any age, the lure of the three is irresistible.
Evolution marches double time in sports. And, with the three, there emerged two species of scorers: He who rattles the rim with a dunk, and he who caresses it with his long range touch. Lost has been much of the good work in between.
That culture also has fostered a certain gunslinger's confidence that is fascinating when put into play. Those who shoot from afar are an unflinching breed. "You put so much work into it that it becomes an easier shot than it seems like it should be," said Florida State's Michael Snaer, who this season hit late threes to beat Duke and Virginia Tech. "You have no choice but to believe they're going in."
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