Things learned, observed on Day 2 of Yokota Christmas Classic girls basketball tournament
Published: December 20, 2011
One six-minute stretch of action (or inaction), the final six minutes of Tuesday’s pool-play game between Kadena and Yokota, will likely become the most talked-about portion of the Christmas Classic Girls Basketball Tournament, if not the entire season.
For Tuesday's Christmas Classic results and photos, click here.
With Yokota leading 42-37 and Kadena having just scored, Yokota senior point guard Erika Ettl brought the ball past midcourt. Coach Paul Ettl called out, “Spread!”
And Yokota’s five players stretched out into the old-school North Carolina four-corner formation. Kadena stayed in a 1-2-2 zone, not coming out to force a “closely-guarded” call or press Yokota into doing something with the ball.
With no shot clock in this tournament, Yokota was free to use this strategy for however long it wanted.
And the teams just stood there. For the final six minutes. Occasionally, Ettl would hand the ball to teammate Trinity Davis who would hand the ball back to Ettl. Teammates Sydney Glover and Cora Argallon would dance briefly from time to time. Spectators alternately laughed or had their faces turned crimson with rage over Coach Ettl’s tactic.
Kadena’s players clearly wanted to do something besides stand there; some even asked the coaching staff if they could come out and guard Yokota. “Just stay there!” assistant coach Tiffany Madison said.
Successful, the strategy was. Yokota came away with a 42-37 victory, and later beat Nile C. Kinnick 48-41 to go 4-0 in pool play and earn the top seed into Wednesday’s modified single-elimination playoffs.
But was it good strategy or poor sportsmanship?
I went around the room afterward and asked any number of folks, each team’s coach, players, spectators in the stands, coaches of other teams. Those siding with Ettl and the four-corner stall were clearly in the minority.
“I wanted to practice our delay offense,” Ettl explained, adding that he also wanted his team to face man-to-man pressure, assuming that Kadena would come out of its zone and force the action. And also, there might come times during regular-season games at DODDS facilities that don’t have shot clocks, and in the Far East Division I Tournament, which also doesn’t use a shot clock, when situations might arise that they’d need that tactic in their arsenal, Ettl said.
But Kadena did not come out to challenge Yokota, which surprised quite a few folks, starting with Yokota’s coach. “I didn’t expect them to not come out,” Ettl said.
Kadena’s coaching staff did not buy Ettl’s explanation.
“They need to man up and play,” Kadena head coach Willie Ware said. “That’s what real basketball is about.”
Everything Yokota tried offensively, “we had an answer for,” Ware said. “They were scared. That’s why they held the ball.”
So, why not come out of the zone, go into a man-to-man press and at least try to get a “closely-guarded” call on one of Yokota’s ballhanders? I’m not sure I ever got a clear answer about that. Not for lack of trying, either.
“We prefer to start the game the same way we end it, regardless of the situation,” assistant coach Darrell Winfrey said.
Tuesday’s game was just a pool-play game for seeding purposes; all five teams qualified for Wednesday’s playoffs. Thus, Kadena didn’t come out of its zone, but “come the playoffs, we won’t do that,” Ware said.
OK, so put yourself in your players’ shoes, I asked Ware and Winfrey. How do you think they felt when they were told to not challenge Yokota and try to win the game?
Ware hesitated. “Good point,” he finally said.
Players very clearly and articulately sided with their coaches. “It’s on them (Kadena); they should have come out and played us,” Yokota forward Sydney Glover said.
Kadena players clearly felt otherwise. “That’s not fair. It’s just wrong,” forward Eisiah Lawson said.
Yokota principal Darrell Mood, the Christmas Classic’s primary scorekeeper who coached the old Wagner High Falcons of Clark Air Base, Philippines, to the D-I boys tournament title in 1990 on the same Capps Gym floor, questioned why Kadena didn’t play more aggressively on defense.
“What kind of message does that send to your players, when you’re telling them not to play to win?” Mood said. “That coach basically conceded defeat.”
***
To the spectators, players and coaches who felt that incident should be impetus enough to get DODDS Pacific to mandate shot clocks for Far East tournaments again, don’t hold your breath.
DODDS Pacific is an affiliate member of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which recommends but does not mandate a shot clock. Of the 50 United States, 45 of them do not use shot clocks; thus, DODDS desires to side with the majority of states that don’t, and also to mirror what DODDS does in Europe and DDESS does in the States.
The shot clock came into being in the 1954-55 National Basketball Association season, one of three answers to a deadly serious problem facing the league. The games themselves had become dull and boring. Fault lay not with the players themselves, but with the game as it was played. Too many whistles.
In addition to there not being a shot clock, there was no limit on team fouls (individuals would still foul out after a set amount of violations), and the foul lanes were just six feet wide, permitting big men such as George Mikan of the Minneapolis Lakers to camp in the lane defensively and force teams to beat the Lakers from the perimeter. Also, there were no non-shooting fouls; a foul in a non-shooting situation resulted in one free throw.
Whenever a team would get the lead, it was to its advantage to freeze the ball, to keep it out of the opponent’s hands. So the opposing team would foul and put the leading team at the line. In retaliation, the leading team would foul right back. This, in effect, would result in teach team trading two points for one. And in actuality, it turned each game into a monotonous procession to the foul line.
Syracuse Nationals owner Daniel Biasone pressed then-NBA commissioner Maurice Podoloff for a rules change. His team had been practicing various blocks of seconds to see what an appropriate amount would be for a team to get the ball across midcourt, set up a play and execute it, and determined that 24 seconds would be a good time.
He used a game featuring Mikan’s Lakers hosting Larry Faust and the Fort Wayne Pistons in 1950. Murray Mendenhall, the Pistons’ coach, instructed Faust that if the Pistons won the opening tip, to hold the ball at the center of the court until Mikan came out and played the Pistons man-to-man.
The Pistons did get the jump and the ball was handed to Faust. He stood at the center of the court, ball on hip. Mikan and his forward teammates Verne Mikkelson and Jimmy Pollard, dropped back to the baseline. Faust would pass occasionally to a teammate, but there was no action.
In the closing seconds, the Pistons trailed the Lakers 18-17 and hit a desperation shot to win the game 19-18. It took the Pistons some two hours for the fans to clear the arena and they could get out of their lockerroom. The fans were that outraged by the activity.
The 24-second clock, a 12-foot foul lane and team foul limits were added for the NBA’s 1954-55 season. Aside from those changes, the retirement of Mikan left the Laker dynasty dead. The season was a tremendously exciting one, with the Nationals winning the title.
Over the years, more changes have been made, such as the 10-second timeline, reduced to eight seconds a few years ago. Non-shooting fouls were established for the 1972-73 season, along with the three-point line introduced by the old American Basketball Association, seven years later.
College adopted the three-point line and the shot clock, then 45 seconds for men, 25 years ago; it was reduced to 35 seconds a few years later. Women use a 30-second shot clock with no halfcourt timeline. International rules call for an NBA-style 24-second clock and eight-second timeline, and have moved away from the trapezoid foul lane in favor of the NBA’s 14-foot lane.
The reason why high school basketball hasn’t universally adopted a shot clock?
Very simple. At that age, while basketball is competitive, it also remains developmental. People are still learning the game. The old Okinawa and Korea referee John Zivic once remarked to me, “They made the NFHS rulebook for a reason.”
With a 35-second clock, teams must play a more up-tempo game, must have a skilled point guard who can direct traffic, set up plays, get the ball across midcourt and execute in a timely manner.
That’s all well and good for experienced veteran squads from big schools. But your smaller satellite schools in Korea and outlying areas of Japan, which are much smaller than your Kubasakis, Kadenas and Seoul Americans of the world, barely have enough enrollment to populate teams, much less have a skilled point guard available.
Without a shot clock, teams can play any style of ball they want. Yes, even the style Ettl’s Yokota team used today.
Yes, it encourages things like the “BarkerBall” 2002 Far East Division II girls tournament final, won by coach Bruce Barker’s Osan American Cougars over Matthew C. Perry of Japan. The Cougars seized a huge lead via press and transition in the first half, then stalled out the entire second half.
To the point where Perry’s girls broke into a dance on the court. Spectators yelled at Osan’s bench, “Play basketball!” Barker yelled back: “Tell them to come out and play!”
And it also led to the D-I boys tournament game two years ago in which Kubasaki went into a stall against St. Mary’s International, the tournament’s defending champion noted for its Princeton-style deliberate pace. St. Mary’s won that game 12-11 – on the game Capps Gym floor. And it once more sparked debate about the merits of the shot clock vs. no shot clock.
And I suppose it will forever be debated as long as NFHS recommends, but does not mandate, a shot clock.
