I think that college basketball may be the greatest thing ever invented. This whole thing about God on the third day with the air and the water and all is fine, but if he doesn't figure out basketball by the seventh day he better get out of his Barcalounger and start doing some thinking.
Have you ever watched a game where Dick Vitale is commentating and when it becomes a blowout he goes into this thing for the last five minutes about how the biggest travesty ever is the possession arrow and it robs teams that play good defense? Well I'm not Dick Vitale (although with one more trip to Bullock's, a few less hair follicles and a high-paying sports job I could be), but this is my last five minutes of the game and this is what I have a problem with in college basketball.
Free Throws
I could do one of those really cool literary artist things and tell you that the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word free as a noun that means... But I'm not an engineer so I already know what free means. It means gratuitous. It means you don't have to pay for it, five-finger discount. It means you can take it without having to give anything back. It's free!
A free throw is basically a way of saying that you would have made the basket if that clumsy large man in the middle hadn't sat on you in midair, but since we can't just give you the two points why don't you hit these two little shots and then we'll give you the points. However, no one ever hits these shots.
Duke is currently sinking only 72 percent of its free throws and it ranks second in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Second on 72 percent? On Wednesday night, Rhode Island lost to No. 1 and still undefeated Massachusetts by three points, but it only hit about 50 percent of the 20-some odd free throws it took. If Rhode Island only hits 75 percent of these 15-foot shots that are taken with no one in your face, it would have easily won the game.
I know that you are tired and that people are screaming at you, and if you play at Cameron then Buck Rogers is somewhere in the audience shining a gamma death ray at you, but can you hit at least 85 to 90 percent? I'll never be able to dunk a basketball or wrestle a rebound away from Todd Fuller, but if I practiced for three or four hours a day I could hit a free throw. It takes no physical talent whatsoever.
Coaches have revamped the rules so that after 10 team fouls the player being fouled automatically gets two shots instead of a one-and-one situation. This was brought about because coaches hated losing games in the last two minutes when their players would miss free throws. But even with the rule change teams are losing games left and right. Maryland almost blew a game last night to N.C. State after having a 20-point lead because Keith Booth missed a free throw in the last 10 seconds. Watch how many teams fall in the NCAA Tournament because of a failure to hit foul shots.
Dribbling
I'm not referring to what happens to these players as high school seniors when prospective coaches show them what kind of car they will get if they attend their university next year. I'm talking about the simple act of dribbling the ball up the court. No one seems to know how to do it anymore. These players can leap over Spud Webb to dunk the ball from halfcourt, but no one knows how to dribble the ball to even get to this point.
Also, not one single point guard in America can run the point from the top of the key unless they palm the ball. Watch a slow-mo highlight of a point guard with a defender on him. He will sit there and come up under the ball like he was serving it for lunch. There's more spin on these dribbles than on a Bob Dole political commercial.
Last few seconds of the shot clock
I see the same thing happening about 20 times every time Georgia Tech plays a game. The point guard brings the ball down, (palming the ball, of course) and then proceeds to work it around the perimeter. He goes inside to the big man, but there's no shot there so he kicks it back out. The guards move it around again and since there is no shot they go back to the point guard near the halfcourt line with around 10 seconds left on the shot clock. The point guard palms the ball for about eight seconds looking his defender in the eye before launching up a 35-foot three-pointer that misses miserably. Drew Barry and Stephon Marbury both miss a few shots per game doing this.
Once again I'm not a great player and as I mentioned I'm not an engineer, but it would seem to me that if the point guard would make a move when he got the ball with 10 seconds left he could easily take it to the hoop, dish it off or find an open man. Instead we get John Wayne in knee-high athletic socks and baggy shorts trying to prove he is a man by canning a three at the last second.
But even these mental midgets who squeak into a college with a 710 SAT know what you're going to do with the ball when there is only two seconds left on the shot clock. The head fake is wonderful, but I think he knows that you aren't taking him to the left off the dribble. Think about it.
William Dvoranchik is a Trinity senior and associate sports editor of the Chronicle. In regards to the recent Academy Award nominations, he would like to inquire why "Duke FootballD107 years of Glory," (running time: 12 minutes), chronicling Duke losses in the All-American, Hall of Fame, Orange and yes, even the Rose Bowl, was not included in the nominations for best short film of the year.
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