The Three-point Uproar

As for lower scoring, Steitz's stats show that going into this season total game scoring had dropped from 149 to 139 over the last eight years. But that figure is suspect because it includes the era in which ACC-style stallball was popular. The mandatory 45-second clock, which was instituted last season, should take care of that trend. What is relevant is the Dean Smith Corollary: If you have the clock, you must also have the three-point shot. "If you have just a time clock without the three-point play," says Smith, "teams will pack their defenses back in, and poor rebounding teams will have no chance."

The best argument for the three-point shot is plain and simple: It adds juice to the game. Fans like it and so do most players. Coaches will probably have to find a way to live with it, just as they found a way to live with the shot clock, TV timeouts and NCAA Bylaw 5-1-(j). "Why should coaches control the game when they might be gone the following year?" says UC Irvine's Bill Mulligan, who is, of all things, a coach.

But, Dr. Steitz, lend an ear to some of these terror-stricken devils. Your committee acted rashly and unwisely. Instituting a rule with the cavalier premise that it can be adjusted if it doesn't work erodes the integrity of the game. You should have realized that a stab from 19'9" is too short—if not, as Miller says, a junior high shot, then at least a routine jumper off a pick. It's so short that players are taking it without the proper element of risk and suspense, without that gunslinger look in their eyes. Move the line back next season. Even Tarkanian, who is counting on his bombardier backcourt of Freddie Banks and Gerald Paddio to three-point him into the Final Four, agrees with that.

To where? Well, the 23'9" (22 feet in the corners) NBA shot is too long, too much of a heave. Leave that to Larry Bird. On the other hand, the international three-point line of 20'6" is too close. How about 21 feet? Twenty-one is a good number, long considered the American age of maturity.

From that estimable yet not impossible distance, a player could shoot without parental permission. But he had better check with his coach first.