An
increase in frenetic activity on the court served as a byproduct of the abolition
of the center jump. Supporters of the
center jump had claimed it positively slowed down the game so that players
would not overexert themselves.
According to Time, the results
of the rule change during the first year led some “physicians and coaches” to
become concerned that the pace placed “too great a strain on players’
hearts.” Most commentators and coaches,
however, welcomed the change since the elimination of the jump: “speeds up the game, adds about seven minutes
of playing time…[and] results in more spectacular tries for basketball and
larger scores.”[1]
The
increase in scoring surpassed all expectations as teams and players adjusted to
the new rules. Whereas scores in the
early 1930s had often been in the teens and twenties, some teams scored in the
sixties during the early 1940s. By the
end of the decade, scores exploded into the seventies, eighties, and even
nineties. Spectators witnessed evenly
matched teams score at incredible paces and individual players became stars for
scoring more than 20 points in a game. Specialization began to differentiate
between positions as “playmakers” became point guards and coaches designed
offenses around individual players’ ability to score. In March 1947, Harry Boykoff scored 54
points, which then set a record at Madison
Square Garden ,
in a 71-52 St. John’s
victory over rival St. Francis.[2] The increased scoring also attracted
spectators and intensified the commercialism of college basketball. Garden promoter Ned Irish and the
Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association (MBWA) took immediate advantage of
this change, and at the end of the 1938 season, they organized a postseason
tournament to crown a national champion.
Described
as the “Rose Bowl of Basketball,” the National Invitational Tournament (NIT)
invited six teams (NYU, LIU, Temple , Bradley,
Oklahoma A&M, and Colorado ) to Madison Square Garden Temple , with
All-American Mike (Meyer) Bloom leading the way, defeated Colorado
and its star, future Supreme Court Justice Byron ‘Whizzer’ White, 60-38 by
playing “a brand of basketball that never has been surpassed in Madison Square Garden
The
post-season tournaments encouraged the ongoing growth and standardization of
college basketball. Stanford coach John
Bunn stated the Garden provided a “benefit” to all participants since “Western
teams could learn about ball-handling from their Eastern opponents
while…invading teams could teach the local fives a little about shooting.” As more cities promoted double-headers,
eastern teams sometimes traveled west and commentators declared that
“basketball’s provincialism is gone and the game is much healthier for it.” In 1940, Newsweek stated that
basketball was “watched annually by more paying customers than any other sport,
90,000,000 in a single season.”[4] That same year, the first televised college
basketball game took place, although basketball would not take full advantage
of the new medium until the 1950s.
Following the 1941 season, during which Nat Holman served as president
of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), the organization’s
Coaching Committee voted to standardize the size of the ball, floor,
backboards, lighting, and other equipment.
Standard equipment, inter-regional double-headers, and national
tournaments, helped college basketball surpass all but college football and
major league baseball in national popularity by World War II.[5]
[1] “Sport:
In New Orleans ,”
Time, February 7, 1938 ; “Sport: Point a Minute,” Time, January 24, 1938 . In 1909, Luther Gulick stated
he opposed the ‘cage’ game “because of the excessive strain upon the heart
produced by the continuous playing.” See Luther Gulick, “Proposed Changes in
Basket Ball,” American Physical Education
Review 14, no. 8 (October 1909): 509.
[2]
Bjarkman, Hoopla, 47. Scoring records
fell at incredible paces during the 1940s.
In March 1945, NYU scored 85 points in a game against Temple
and Bowling Green
scored 97 points at the Garden in 1948.
Boykoff scored a Garden record 45 points in 1943. That scoring mark was broken by Mikan in
1945. For Boykoff’s 1947 mark, see “St.
Francis Beaten By Redmen,” New York Times, March 12, 1947. St.
John’s coach Joe Lapchick called Dutch Garfinkel a
“playmaker” in relation to his ability to produce scoring opportunities for his
teammates. See “West’s Brand of
Basketball Finds Favor of Lapchick,” New
York Evening Post, December
13, 1938 .
[3]
“Readers’ Right,” New York March 4, 1938 and March 7, 1938 . The Post was not part of the committee which organized the tournament
and received 34 letters in protest of the first NIT. NYU and LIU played for the
first time ever. On the final, see New
York Times, March 17,
1938 .
[4]
“Activities on Basketball Courts,” New York Times, January 4, 1938 . “West Meets East and Trims It in Year-End
Basketball Spurt,” Newsweek, January 8, 1940. The NCAA formed its own tournament because it
determined that it needed to control college basketball. See Applin, “From Muscular Christianity to
the Marketplace,” 170-171.
[5] For
information on Holman’s tenure as NABC president, see Nat Holman papers, City
College of New York Archives, New York.
On the NABC vote to standardize the game, see “Uniform Basketball and
Coaches Pushed by Coaches’ Committee,” New York March 25, 1941 . On basketball’s growth and
general attendance figures, see “Sports,” Newsweek, April 14, 1944 . According to the
article, Garden attendance was 249,728 at double-headers and 115,000 at the
national tournaments.
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