The Arc of Triumph : Adoption of Three-Point Shot Has Far-Reaching Impact in High School Ranks

Some are already calling it the Great Equalizer, invoking thoughts of the Wild West, when ornery hombres packed pistols. Back then, little guys had a chance, because the fastest man to pull the trigger and duck--a bygone version of the gun-n-run--stayed alive.

Even the biggest, toughest guys in the territory could get their lights shot out by a 5-foot, 5-inch city-slicker and his derringer.

In basketball, the contemporary equivalent of the six-shooter is the three-point shot. Now a smallish guard with a hot hand can kill you from the outside.

“The three-point shot is the best thing to hit basketball since they took down the peach basket,” Calabasas High Coach Bill Bellatty said. “I absolutely love it. It’s really helped open things up in the middle.”

Ah, those wide-open spaces inside. Simi Valley Coach Bob Hawking learned a little about three-point shooting and the way it opens the middle when his team ventured East last month to play in the Beach Ball Classic, a tournament of some renown in South Carolina.

While there, the Pioneers, who have a 6-10 All-American at center and a 6-5 forward, ran into--and stumbled over--Clay County High of Manchester, Ky. Clay County started a 6-2 center and four players who are 6-0 or shorter. Nevertheless, the Tigers neutralized Simi Valley’s height advantage by scoring repeatedly from outside.

“They had a kid that took five three-pointers in the first three games of the tournament,” said Hawking, with a trace of agitation. “And then he makes 8 of 12 against us.”

Clay County made 12 of 18 attempts from three-point range and defeated Simi Valley, 95-91. The little guys had outgunned the big team from the West.

The three-point shot was adopted by the National Federation of High School Athletic Assns. last spring. Coaches, and the players who take the shots outside the arc 19-feet, 9-inches from the basket, are adjusting to the biggest rule change in years.

Reactions have varied. Some say the shot has not provided the lift they expected. Other coaches maintain the shot is their salvation. One thing is certain, no matter which side of the line the coaches or players are on, high school basketball undoubtedly has changed.

“It adds that many more variables,” Kennedy Coach Yutaka Shimizu said. “It makes things that much more complicated.”

Momentum can change faster than a ball drops through twine. Once-safe leads disappear in the blink of an eye. Ten-point deficits nearly evaporate with three baskets from long range. Formerly comfortable margins are tenuous and coaches fidget nervously on the edge of their chairs, awaiting another last-second, hit-or-miss bomb from the great beyond.

Simi Valley held a 21-point, third-quarter lead over Bishop Gorman in the Eldorado tournament final last month in Las Vegas. Bishop Gorman whittled the margin to 10 with 1:23 left, and eventually won in overtime, 105-99. Several key baskets were made from three-point range.

In the championship game of the Chaminade tournament last month, Cleveland took a 24-point lead over Manual Arts into the third quarter. Trailing, 77-61, with 3:30 to play, Manual Arts made four consecutive three-point shots to pare the lead to 79-73.

Cleveland held on for an 84-77 win, but Coach Bob Braswell was sweating it out.

“If we lead by 24 last year, there’s probably no way Manual gets back into the game,” he said. “This year, it’s a learning experience for us all.”

The three-point shot, an experiment in certain pockets of the country last year, was adopted nationwide in March. Everything from beyond 19-9--the same distance used in college--henceforth would count for three points. All over the country, coaches crawled across gym floors as they put down tape or painted the line. Shooters spent extra time in the gym, toeing the line.

“I had a line down in a couple of days,” said Braswell, who says he does not discourage players from attempting any shot. “We wanted to be ready.”

But was anybody ready for the changes it has caused?

Richie Farmer is an All-American guard for Clay County, the defending Kentucky state champion. His brother, Russ, also starts for the Tigers, who are ranked No. 22 in a national poll.

In their win over Simi Valley, the Farmers connected on 10 of 16 from behind the three-point line, while teammate Russ Chadwell was 2 for 2.

All are six-feet tall or under.

Hawking, whose team is ranked No. 1 in the Southern Section 4-A Division with a record of 14-3, had witnessed what he feared most--give some teams an outside chance, and they’ll take it.

“There’s no question that a team with two or three good shooters can beat anybody if they’re on,” Hawking said.

Simi Valley employs the shot to accentuate its power game, because 6-2 senior guard Butch Hawking, the coach’s son, is among the best perimeter shooters in the Valley area. With Butch scoring from long range, the shot helps relieve pressure on 6-10 center Don MacLean and 6-5 forward Shawn DeLaittre.

It has helped, but the results have been surprising.

“I really thought it would work to our advantage,” the Simi Valley coach said. “It hasn’t. I think we’ve been burned by others more than it’s helped us.

“If we were still playing under last season’s rules, we’d be undefeated right now.”

Because Clay County has lost only one game, it would seem reasonable to assume that Coach Bob Keith would be downright crazy over the shot. Not exactly.

“Last year we had guys shooting from the 13- and 14-foot range,” said Keith, who chalked up his 500th coaching victory last week. “Every time we put one up, I grimace. This year, everybody wants to shoot from farther out.”

Clay County lost only one starter from last year’s championship team--he was 6-2--so Keith knows his team doesn’t need to rely on the shot.

“The thing is, if you have a game like we did against Simi, where you’re 12 for 18 or whatever, then you know you’re due to have a 3-for-14 night, too,” he said.

Others are more carefree about incorporating the shot into the offense. At Calabasas, Bellatty has given five players the green light from three-point range and six seconds to launch some kind of shot.

“I want one, maybe two passes,” Bellatty said. “I don’t want us messing around and turning the ball over. I want the ball up right now, and if it’s a three-point shot, fine.”

Rather than believe his strategy odd, Bellatty likes the odds.

“I figure we have to shoot 34%,” he said. “If we make 34% of our three-pointers, it’s better than making 50% of our two-pointers, if you take the same amount of shots from both places.”

In Calabasas’ 68-49 win over Nordhoff on Tuesday, three-point bombs provided a definite shot in the arm. The Coyotes made 11 of 24 three-point shots (45%) and 13 of 33 two-point attempts (39%).

Maybe Bellatty has a point, or three, since his tallest starter is 6-5. Calabasas leaves the bone-crushing and board-crashing to the big bruisers. Still, Calabasas is only 8-10.

“It’s a whole new dimension,” Bellatty said, “and we’re prepared to live by it and die by it.”

Some coaches, however, believe the three-pointer is anything but a fine line.

“I’m actually pleased that we haven’t fallen in love with it,” Saugus Coach John Clark said. “You have to play fundamental basketball. I want my kids battling under the basket. I want them inside with their faces up against the glass.”

Stopping one’s own team from taking the shot is as easy as yanking a player from the floor, but halting an opponent is more difficult. Teams with one or more three-point shooters demand different types of defensive alignments.

“It can really spread out the court,” Taft Coach Jim Woodard said. “If you have a good outside game, it complements the inside game, and it limits your choices.”

Said Braswell: “There’s no way teams can just sag, sag, sag. You have to acknowledge the three-point shooter. Teams with good perimeter players will see lots of man-to-man defense.”

Especially late in the game, when the shot is used more often. The three-pointer has forced teams to re-examine defensive strategies when holding slim leads in an effort to take away that potential bolt of lightning.

“I was struck by a thought the other day,” North Hollywood Coach Steve Miller said. “What would I do if I had a three-point lead with six seconds left, and the other team had the ball? I think I’d tell the kids to foul the shooter and force them to make the one-and-one.

“Then we’d just have to worry about inbounding the ball and killing the clock.”

The strategy leaves, of course, the possibility of an intercepted pass and a basket.

“We’re still finding out what works best,” Miller said.

With North Hollywood holding a slim lead over Poly last week, Miller extended the defense beyond the three-point line, which forced Poly to abort the long-range bombs in favor of shots inside, where North Hollywood held a big height advantage. Poly made six three-point shots but couldn’t deliver late, and North Hollywood won, 56-49.

Conversely, some teams have played long ball too soon and taken themselves out of games they might have won if the three-point shot was used more judiciously.

“It can turn a close game into a rout,” Woodard said. “That showed the other night.”

In a 72-65 loss to Kennedy last week, Taft went to the bomb with three minutes left in the game.

“We panicked early, no question, and missed a couple that they converted,” Woodard said. “If we play with better control, we have a good chance to pull it out.”

While the shot has taken away a degree of control from coaches--zone defenses in tight games have been virtually eliminated--it has forced officials to control yet another facet of the game: pinpointing the location of the shooter’s feet, which cannot contact the line until after the ball is airborne.

“It’s had a big impact on officiating,” said Rick Scott, a Valley-area official with 15 years of high school experience. “There are a couple of dead spots out there, and you have to move out of position to watch where a kid’s feet are. When that happens, you can easily miss what’s happening in the middle.”

Many college conferences use three officials, something Scott said would be desirable at the high school level. “We’re talking about the biggest on-court change I can remember,” he said. “We could use another set of eyes.”

The Southern Section is considering the addition of a third official, but only in games between larger schools because of the cost.

“It’s not going to be cheap, but it’s on the horizon,” said Dean Crowley, a Southern Section administrator. “As it stands, it’s probably too much responsibility for the trail official to watch three-quarters of the three-point line and be expected to keep an eye on everything else.”

Crowley said the Southern Section also will establish a list of three-point records--which will probably include game- and season-bests, shooting percentage and attempts--after the season concludes.

That will include records for girls as well, who shoot from the same distance as boys. While the three-point shot is usually a factor in girls’ games only as a last-ditch attempt to cut a big lead, the shot may develop with time.

“At this point, that’s about the only time we see that shot,” North Hollywood girls’ Coach Rich Allen said. “In a couple of years, with more practice, who knows?”

Crowley said feedback on the shot--from boys’ and girls’ coaches--has been “overwhelmingly positive” at the section and state levels.

“I’d have to say it’s here to stay,” he said. “We’ve seen very few negatives.”

Cleveland’s Joey Manliguis has never seen a shot he didn’t think he could make. When the 5-11 senior guard launches a shot from three-point range, which is often, it isn’t especially pretty, but it’s often effective. No nicknames like Silk are used to describe Manliguis, who is sometimes called Baby Bird by friends and teammates.

An above-average ballhandler who is capable of driving the lane, Manliguis is one of many high school players who might find a niche in college ball solely because of the new shot.

“It’s put the little guy back in the game,” Braswell said. “Colleges that might not have asked about guys like Joey because of his size are interested now.”

Kennedy’s Shimizu, who said the prospect of getting burned by the three-point shot prompted him to eliminate zone defenses, believes the shot will become even more entrenched. Throughout the country, youngsters are honing an outside shot on driveway courts and in dimly lit gyms, hoping to ride their long-distance skills into a long-term scholarship.

“You can bet kids all over are practicing the thing,” Shimizu said. “Give it another year or two, and you’ll really start seeing the impact of it.”

The Valley’s Best Long-Range Shooters

Player, School Yr. Pos. Ht. Att. Made 3-P % Joey Manliguis, Cleveland Sr. G 5-11 59 34 57.6% Mark Nielsen, Burbank Sr. F 6-3 35 20 57.1% Darren Hinman, Hart Sr. G 5-11 61 27 44.2% Butch Hawking, Simi Valley Sr. G 6-2 104 44 42.3% Kevin Martin, Thousand Oaks Sr. G 6-2 51 19 37.2% Rick Bilek, Saugus Sr. G 5-10 95 35 36.8% Steve Valenzuela, Hart Sr. G 6-0 109 38 34.8% Jon Drezner, Calabasas Sr. F 6-4 1/2 81 27 33.3% Tory Stephens, San Fernando Sr. G 6-2 68 20 29.4%