PAGE SIX THE MICHIGAN DAILY WEDNESDAY-MARVIVE i4.1!4a PAGE SIX THE MICHIGAN flAtLY WI~flNI1~flAV UMADE'U 0 10~t xr r4"IN1.47jtorzk , IvIt nvn . 7, lubb 11' Tradition... Once Upon A Basketball Court By DAVE WEIR and HOWARD KOHN (EDITOR'S NOTE:. This is the first in a series of articles analyz- ing Michigan 'basketball history.) Where there is tradition there is awe, and where there is para- dox there is intrigue. But where Michigan basketball is concerned, there is more frustration than anything else figuring out where the paradox lets off and the tra- dition begins. There is a tradition and again there really isn't. Basketball once sat among the peers of Michigan sports, but it never ruled as king until the era of Cazzle. There were champion- ships (admittedly f e w) and crowds, but the excitement and thrills were never there in quantity or quality. Basketball Lethargy In the past, Michigan has been proud of its football team, spirited about its hockey team and, well, "unopposed" to basketball. Con- sider that Michigan had only two basketball Al-Americans-Bennie Oosterbaan (1928) and John Townsend (1938)-in the 47-year span between 1917 and 1964 and consider that Michigan went to the NCAA post-season tournament only once (1948) in that period: that the only tradition to come out of Michigan's first basketball era was a leaky old fieldhouse is entirely reasonable .. . almost. But there is still the paradox. During the fifties, when post-war fervor changed the style of the game in accordance with fast- paced fan demands, the rest of the nation and the rest of the Big Ten responded with zest. But Michigan floundered in doldrums. Its con- ference record between 1949 and 1962 rates lower than the complete records of the New York Mets, Boston Bruins and Detroit Pistons --a dismal 63-133 mark. Then, in the early sixties, Bill Buntin, Cazzie Russell, Oliver Dar- den and teammates enrolled at Michigan. Basketball took a me- teoritic turn upward and the fans have watched nothing but a big- time winner since. 59 Years Ago But to go back to the beginning. The Wolverines had their first, abbreviated attempt at basketball in 1907-playing five games, los- ing four and earning a suspension from the Big Ten. "It wasn't really a suspension," explains Elmer Mitchell, Michi- gan's coach from 1917 to 1919. "We actually withdrew from the conference over a dispute on a retroactive rule which barred many of our football players from playing basketball." Michigan c o m p e t e d against teams from the East during the nine-year interim, but in Mitchell's first year as coach the Wolverines rejoined the Western Conference. Once entrenched in the confer- ence hardcourt whirl, it took only four years for them to capture their first championship and take their first crack at building a dynasty. There was only one problem- basketball in the twenties wasn't a sport on which to base an awe- inspiring tradition. The Underhanded Plop Shot Michigan played in the Water- man gym on a court 70 feet long (compared to 94 now), there was only one man on the team over six feet tall, players used the un- derhanded plop shot and a "mass defense" to keep scores in the 10-30 point range, the athletic board regarded basketball as more of a comedy than a sport and one game even resumed posthumously after the Michigan players had taken their showers. As Mitchell remembers the in- cident, "We were ahead ly one point with a few minutes left in the inauguration game for the new Michigan State gymnasium when a # camera flashbulb exploded in the stands. Everyone thought it was the final buzzer . . . the fans left and the players went to the locker room to take their showers. Only after the referees had round- ed us up did we realize that the game wasn't over. We went back . . . State tied the score and it took three overtimes before we finally won." Conference Games Too MSU wasn't in the Big Ten then, but the Wolverines were winning conference spinetinglers too, and in nine years (1921-1929) Michigan either won or shared four titles. Up until 1936 the Wolverines ranked second in all time Big Ten play with 123 wins, 78 losses and a .617 percentage. Only Piggy Lambert's great Purdue teams could maintain a better average. Still the sport itself lacked so- phistication and class. There were inconsistencies in the game. A player was once given four foul shots because two oppo- nents fouled him at the same time. And until the mid-thirties, there were stereotyped tactics like the center jump after each basket and delegating all the free throw duties to one player on each team. "Basketball was a minor sport, rated about even with tennis at Michigan," reminisces Mitchell. The cagers finally did move out of Waterman gym into Yost Field House because the railing around the second-floor c o m b i n a t i o n track-stands was weakening. But a Michigan basketball tradition was still like space travel-only for dreamers. And then came the Bear Market year of 1929 when Oosterbaan graduated and Wall Street stocks and Wolverine basketball victories suffered a recession. From then until 1948 there were no more championships to strengthen that glimmer called tradition. Looking back, through the eyes of the living legends around the Ann Arbor campus, tradition-lov- ers find excuses and reasons. Michigan wasn't that bad . . .and it wasn't that good ... and medi- ocrity wasn't that inspiring . BUT there were other factors. Gridiron Domination There was football .. . and the athletic administration. Fielding H. Yost had conquered the nation in building up an unrivalled grid- iron empire at Michigan, and the cagers had so little to offer in the way of anything that their field- house was named Yost. "Basketball was continually In the umbrage," recalls Wally Web- er, onetime coach, faculty member, fan and all-around talking ency- clopedia. "There was an aristo- cracy of sports at Michigan, head- ed by football, and basketball had to pull itself up by its own boot- straps." Whether the athletic board em- phasized football and deempha- sized basketball is debatable, but the fact remains that basketball was a losing endeavor-financially and otherwise. And in the words of Fritz Crisler, athletic director since 1947, "Winning always helpsI a sport gain support, and we didn't win at basketball." Football Bureaucracy Football was dr.awing the crowds and nothing was more natural than to build a new football sta- dium and hire a staff of assistants for the fulltime grid mentor. Basketball, meanwhile, had to make do with a part time coach, like Oosterbaan, who spent half of the cage session still assisting in football. "There wasn't the de- gree of specialization in basket- ball coaching. Our basketball coaches were primarily remodelled football coaches who would start basketball when football ended," explains Weber. Or as Oosterbaan remembers, "Our policy at Michigan was to dovetail the coaches in other sports into basketball, up until the time of Ozzie Cowles (cham- pionship year of 1948) who was our first fulltime coach." Ooster- baan coached between 1939 and 1947, one of the leanest periods in Michigan basketball history. Coach George To quote a Detroit News clip- ping from a Nov. 16, 1945, issue: "Bill Barclay, assistant coach who has been handling the basketball team in the absence of head coach Bennie Oosterbaan busy with football. . ." Which might be comparable to having George Pomey in charge of this year's Wolverines. Why the double duty? "The board didn't feel anyone else around at the time was as well qualified for the job as basketball coach," says Crisler bluntly. "His primary responsibility was to basketball, though, and since re- cruiting wasn't very extensive he had time for football, too." Weber expounds further, "Once; you have a winning team and a paying public you can justify throwing money into a sport :for coaches and recruiting." And to quote Crisler again, "Remember, basketball was just a secondary sport." Ozzie and Pete Until Cowles' first and only year as coach, Michigan had had neither the team or the audience for a long time. Pete Elliott, now head football coach at Illinois, and Bob Harrison were the ring- leaders in the Wolverines' success- ful attack on the crown under Cowles. But the glory lasted just that one year, and further demise followed. But to regress back to the thir- ties and forties. The game of basketball had added few things to attract national attention. Recruiting was still a dud. "There wasn't the emphasis on hard-sell recruiting anywhere, and Michigan wasn't especially attrac- tive to the great players, anyway," explains Oosterbaan.- "Some of our best basketball players came to Michigan as foot- ball heroes," remembers Crisler, who coached the gridiron' sport during part of its saga. "And of course the Big Ten didn't offer scholarships for athletes, while other schools did." Strack a Terror Style of play was still slow and deliberate, too. Most players now relied on two shots - the two- handed set shot and the dog shot. Michigan's current coach, Dave Strack, was a terror for the Wol- verines with his set shot in his player years of 1944-46. There were few fast breaks, no pressing defenses and no dunks because the players still weren't tall enough. The main strategy was to set up the top shooters behind a screen for their set shots, or to drive on the baseline for a half- hearted lay-up. "The game just wasn't that fast and people often preferred to watch hockey games . instead," offers Bill Perigo who introduced the faster tempo when he came to Michigan in 1952.- Maroons As late as 1943, though, Big Ten team Chicago scored only 569 points in 18 season games, almost 200 less than Cazzie Russell has scored so, far this year by himself. That same year Chicago had only 254 points in nine Big Ten games or six more points than Michigan amassed against Wisconsin and Purdue in two consecutive Satur- days earlier this year. "When I played," says Strack, "shooting 35 per cent from the floor was usually good enough to win most games. Now we feel that we should be above 40 per cent to be even in the game." Compare this to Mitchell's recollection of 9-8 scores and shooting percent- ages of 20 or below. Faculty? The fans, except those diehard valiants of the family and faculty, were understandably not overly enthused by the mechanical play- ers with their mechanical plays. "Through the years the crowd support was always lukewarm. Some nights you could shoot a cannonball through the stands and not hit a single basketball fan," quips Weber. "Human nature explains the c r o w d s," offers Oosterbaan. "Whenever we had a winner the fieldhouse wasn't big enough." But it wasn't often that Michigan had even a contender through the "dry' thirties and foities, and it wasn't often that capacity crowds went wild in the State St. monas- tary, despite free admission. "There used to be a inertia in basketball. There was nothing to get the fans moving . . . and the crowds were blaze and unenthusi- astic," enjoins Weber. Hegel and Basketball Tradition flirted with Michigan basketball ... but whether it was only historical myth or dialectical athleticism is questionable. At any rate, inertia took a year off in 1948 with Cowles and then quickly reappeared to haunt Yost Field House for 14 more years. This was perhaps the real paradox. (Next: How, why, when, where and what.) Bowl Game: N o Decision Big Ten athletic directors have taken no action on a suggestion that the conference enter into a post-season bowl game agreement with the Big Eight, Big Ten Com- missioner William reed said yes- terday. The proposal, made last week by Bob Hyland, CBS radio vice- president and general manager of K1V4OX, St. Louis, called for. an "Olympic Bowl" to be held in early December between the Big Eight's top team and the Big Ten's second-place team. Proceeds from the game, which would be held in St. Louis' new Busch Memorial Stadium, would be donated to the United States Olympic Fund. Reed said he had submitted copies of Hyland's telegraphed correspondence to Big Ten faculty representatives and athletic direc- tors, but has not received any comments from them on it 0 V ( Going Places? if she doesn't give it to you.. 1 Grow with SUNITED There's plenty. of room for you at the top of our ladder! 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