Editor's note: The second time the Final Four was played at the Superdome in New Orleans was on March 30, 1987, when Indiana defeated Syracuse, 74-73. This column, by correspondent Joe Gergen, appeared in the April 13, 1987, issue of The Sporting News under the headline, “Alford’s Treys Made Knight’s Day — and Steitz’s."
NEW ORLEANS — When the final basket of the final college basketball game of the season had been tallied, even Bobby Knight was tempted to offer three cheers for the three-point field goal. The fact that he had benefitted directly from the rule change he had so vehemently opposed swayed his opinion, if only temporarily, Without the three-pointer, Knight's Indiana Hoosiers would have been No. 2.
Knight had resisted extensive use of the shot from behind the 21-foot line, although his roster included one of the most gifted shooters in the nation. Although Steve Alford shot better than 50 percent from three-point distance, Indiana opponents led the Hoosiers in attempts during the regular season and through the first five games of the NCAA Tournament. "It's the thing I like least in basketball," Knight said on more than one occasion and in various stages of all humor.
Nor could he resist needling Ed Steitz, the secretary and editor of the NCAA rules committee and the prime spokesman for the controversial shot introduced this season. He branded Steitz, whom he called a friend, as the father of the three-point field goal, which he likened to being the father of the Edsel. And he collared the man in the minutes before the Hoosiers played trigger-happy Nevada-Las Vegas in the national semifinals. "I sure hope your baby doesn't kill us,” Knight told him.
That it did not was no testament to the Rebels' restraint as Nevada-Las Vegas let fly 34 times from long range in the game, a tournament record, and connected 13 times. Freddie Banks had a double triple, hitting 10 in 19 attempts. Still, Indiana's inside strength, its balance and its composure were enough to offset the Rebels' fireworks, and the Hoosiers emerged with a 97-93 victory.
Yet, in the championship game against the Syracuse Orangemen, whose coach also was no fan of the three-pointer, seven of Alford's eight field goals were registered from behind the line. The Orangemen accounted for only four long-range baskets. Thus, under the old math, Indiana's 74-73 victory in the Louisiana Superdome would have been a 69-67 defeat. It did not escape Jim Boeheim's notice.
"I don’t like the three-pointer,” Boeheim said, "but Bob likes it even less. Yet when all is said and done, they got more out of 11. If not for the three-pointers, we'd be national champions."
By the time their teams had reached the title game, Knight and Boeheim were among the vocal minority. Whereas detractors outnumbered advocates by a 3-2 margin at the beginning of the season, according to Steitz, a recent survey conducted among more than 2,000 coaches, administrators, referees and members of the media showed 84 percent in favor. A slight plurality of coaches still preferred that the distance of the shot be moved back to the international or professional distance.
"We decided we'd rather be too short than too long,” Steitz said. The idea was to make the shot an integral part of the offense, which it has done, rather than simply a desperation shot at the end of games. In fact, Providence based its attack around the shot and used the bombs-away philosophy and the threat it creates to reach the Final Four.
Even Knight, a onetime hotshot in Ohio high school circles who was a reserve on those great Ohio State teams of a quarter of a century ago, conceded he might feel differently about the rule if he were affiliated with basketball in another capacity. "As a player, I might like it," he said. "When I was a player, I thought it was a player's game. As a coach, I think it's a coach's game. When I retire, I’ll probably think it's a spectator's game."
Since there are more spectators than coaches — and since the NCAA has become increasingly concerned with attracting more spectators (witness the switch from home courts to dome courts) — the three-pointer won't go away. Naturally, that pleases Steitz, a former coach at Springfield College who speaks fondly of the past but enthusiastically of the future. "I think it's certainly a more interesting game to watch," he said. "Now it's an inside-outside game, not just an inside game."
Steitz has been more bemused than angry at some of the criticism. He thought of a comment by Southern Cal Coach George Raveling, who charged that Dr. James Naismith "would be turning over in his grave" if he knew about the three-point shot. Since he has been affiliated with Naismith's alma mater and taken the time to read his personal papers, Steitz had a ready reply. "I said, ‘Hey, George, I've got news for you. Naismith had the three-point shot in his rules in 1896 and 1904,’” Steitz said.
As a white-haired gentleman with a grandfatherly air, Steitz might be expected to pine for the good old days. Forget it. "If it were up to some of these so-called purists, we'd still be playing with a center jump after every basket," he said. "I played under that rule and believe me, it was terrible.”
Now that the NCAA has implemented the 45-second shot clock and the three-point field goal, Steitz has other ideas about improving a sport that is more popular than ever.
"One thing we have to look at is raising the basket," he said. "Players are so genetically gifted they can jump over the moon. Eighteen years ago, the Big Ten was ready to raise the basket to 11 feet. but then they thought about what would happen to their teams in the NCAA Tournament. There's nothing magical about 10 feet. If that railing on the balcony (of the Springfield, Mass., YMCA) had been set at 11 feet, that's where the basket would be today."
Steitz also wants consideration given to widening the lane. And he added, "I wake up nights with all the fouling at the end of a game. But we're not about to make radical rule changes without research."
Further change, of course, will be resisted. It's the nature not only of sports, but of life, too. Steitz recalled the night on which Stanford's Hank Luisetti introduced the one handed shot to the East at Madison Square Garden five decades ago. Not everybody in attendance was thrilled. "Anyone who would let a player shoot one-handed shouldn't be coaching,” said the esteemed Nat Holman of CCNY.
Steitz smiled at the retelling. He enjoys basketball talk almost as much as the game itself. "I have no ax to grind," he said. "It's a labor of love. I get all the water I can drink for compensation."
What he feeds off is the roar of the crowd. And now and then a morsel of praise, such as that offered, tongue-in-cheek, by Knight after the championship game.
"I get on Ed Steitz about the three-point rule,” Knight said after the game. "We've been friends a long time, but I still get on his butt. Back in the spring he told me, 'We put it in so you could use it with Alford and win the national championship.' He was trying to shut me up. Now I look at the box score and see we made threes more than they did. So thanks, Ed."