Everyone Is Expecting Bigger Things From a Smaller Ball

The best Orange County girls’ teams may not have changed from last season, but one thing has.

The ball.

On Feb. 4, CIF Southern Section officials, following the lead of the NCAA, approved the use of a smaller and lighter basketball.

Coaches supported the smaller ball because they believed it would improve ballhandling and shooting.

Administrators supported the smaller ball because sharper skills meant better games. Better games meant more interest, which just might mean more support and larger crowds.

Everyone seemed to agree. The ball would benefit the players and their game.

So, who do you suppose opposed the new ball?

Uh-huh. The players.

“A lot of the girls felt as if the CIF was looking down on them as basketball players,” Brea-Olinda Coach Mark Trakh said. “I heard some my players say, ‘They give us a smaller ball now, what are they going to do next, lower the baskets?’ ”

The ball is not radically smaller than the standard model. It is about two ounces lighter than the 22-to-24-ounce standard ball, and an inch smaller in circumference. At a glance it is virtually impossible to tell the difference.

But to hear players tell it, one would think the ball was not only smaller, but had the word Nerf emblazoned on it.

“I was really insulted at first,” Mater Dei forward Geri Gainey said. “I’ve been playing basketball since the first grade. I know how to play the game with the regular ball. I don’t need to be pampered.”

Carrie Egan of Brea-Olinda: “They want us to play like the boys and yet they keep changing things to compensate for us. At first I thought it was a bit condescending.”

Egan has one of Orange County’s finest shooting touches. She said sometimes her offhand tends to come over the front of the smaller ball.

Gainey said her adjustment came in trajectory.

“I found I was overshooting all the time at first,” she said. “With the old ball I had to shoot from my hip to get the ball up. But since this is lighter I don’t need all that force. It was a bit of an adjustment. But I think games will be a lot better this season.”

Shooting aside, the main objective of the smaller ball was to cut down on the number of turnovers. Turnovers plagued the season last year, and not just when a team of questionable skill was playing. During the 1985 Orange County girls’ all-star basketball game, the North and South team combined for 67 turnovers, 46 in the first half.

With the larger ball, many girls found it difficult to make chest passes with much force. The new ball has changed that.

“Ball handling-wise the game is going to become faster and we’ll have much less fumbling and mishandling,” Woodbridge Coach Eric Bangs said. “Teams started using the ball in the summer. I saw more crisp half-court chest passes over those few months than I’ve ever seen.”

Trakh: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the pace of games this year will be quicker. There are going to be a lot more cross court passes this year that girls wouldn’t have been able to make last year. But don’t expect the game to change that radically. I mean, don’t expect girls to start dunking.”