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NCAA is better as a guard's game Posted: Monday January 21, 2002 12:35 PMUpdated: Monday January 21, 2002 3:21 PM
You've got to love Marty Blake, the NBA's director of scouting. The man has been around too long to suffer gladly con games, hype or anything short of the real deal. I called him not long ago to ask whether Sports Illustrated ought to be doing a story on Chris Marcus, the 7-foot-1, late-blooming center at Western Kentucky. "He's the only center around, so you can," Marty said. Permission granted -- though an injury wound up toppling the the tallest Hilltopper and we shelved the story. But I learned something enduring from Marty that day. "There are whole conferences without centers," he lamented. "The SEC. The ACC. The Big East. None of them have centers. Guess you'd consider G'zurich a center" -- Marty meant UCLA's Dan Gadzuric, though he made the name sound like a city in Switzerland -- "even if his offense runs the gamut from A to B. "I don't know where the centers are." The dearth of big men has NBA folks fretting, left to look overseas and in the high school ranks for the pivotmen of tomorrow. But it's granted the college game a wonderful gift. College hoops, once thought to be languishing because the best young talent leaves early for the pros, has reinvented itself with a vogue for the three-guard offense. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I like it better. Who "goes small"? Temple does. Florida does. Penn does, too, only there's probably an Ivy League bylaw against the ridiculous size of the three backcourtmen, 6-6 Jeff Schiffner, 6-5 Tim Begley and 6-4 Andy Toole, who spot up outside while the Quakers' mobile, sweet-shooting forwards, Ugonna Onyekwe and Koko Archibong, do-si-do inside the arc. Georgia is a surprise this season because of its three-guard offense. Over the past two seasons, Boston College has resurrected itself as a force in the Big East for the same reason. Kansas fans, beholding the wondrous synergy of Jeff Boschee, Kirk Hinrich and Aaron Miles, must be wondering why the Jayhawks ever stocked their lineup with those big stiffs with ugly haircuts. The overtime game that Kentucky and Duke disputed in the Meadowlands on Dec. 18 was an absolute ballet, the most eye-pleasing 45 minutes of regular-season basketball I can recall. Why? Because both teams ran not just three-guard offenses, but four-guard offenses -- Tayshaun Prince and Mike Dunleavy Jr. being virtual guards in their ability to pass, dribble, move and shoot from anywhere on the floor, though each stands 6-9. When six, seven, even eight guys with basketball skills take the floor at once, the ball gets up the floor more quickly and moves around the forecourt more smartly. The surviving big guys have room to roam and play a little basketball, too. Along with a floor full of guards, one of the best things in the game is a forward who can pass. Back at North Carolina in the early 1980s, Sam Perkins and James Worthy used to find each other with those high-low passes. Now, at Illinois, with Sean Harrington, Cory Bradford and Frank Williams arrayed around them, Brian Cook and Robert Archibald are doing much the same thing. Meantime, Marty Blake has a request: "If you see any centers, will you let me know?" |
