One of the biggest introductions to a sport at all levels was the adoption of the 3-point line in basketball.
With roots dating back to 1945, it was the rival professional basketball league to the NBA, the American Basketball Association that made it popular throughout its nine year history from 1968-1976. The NBA adopted it later for the 1979-80 season.
College basketball flirted with it for most of the 1980s, with several conferences featuring it only during conference play. It wasn’t until the 1986-87 season where it was adopted along all of college basketball.
That same year was also when it was adopted at the high school level across the nation.
Current Lindsay boy’s basketball coach Chris Cornelison was a player at Bowie during that time and remembers the attitude towards the shot was the prevailing strategy for decades to come.
“I don’t think we really looked at it as a gimmick, but we definitely had players that where quality perimeter shooters,” Cornelison said. “Having played for Coach (Gayno) Shelton my freshman through junior year, you definitely had to earn the right to take those shots. Coach Shelton’ players were very well disciplined and you new what shots you were expected to take. I think that during that time as well you were either an inside player or a perimeter player and it was not considered a high percentage shot, especially for the post players.”
Shelton remembers heading into the season not being too worried about it.
“It was okay with me,” Shelton said. “I remember I got a call from the Wichita Falls Times Record News sports writer. The question he was asking me was do you think it will change the game? Do you think this and that. I said, I don’t think so. I said what we will use it for is for defensive reference on how we are going to cover this team. But was I wrong? Did it change the game? Well, it surely did.”
The game was dominated by tall, large post players for most of its history.
Now at the highest level only one is usually required and the ability to move their feet in space on defense in order to not give up open shots is a requirement to get important minutes.
Post ups used to be a feature of most offenses. Nowadays at the highest level, post ups are saved for when a player gets a favorable mismatch on a significantly shorter player since defenses use a switching style defenses in order to not give up open shots from the perimeter.
The dominant tall players now are rarely just planted in the post. They are more skilled then ever, with the ability to handle the ball, shoot from the perimeter as well as score from the post.
While it wasn’t an overnight change, the biggest change in philosophy has come in the last decade. At the professional level, 3-point attempts were at 18.4 a game 10 years ago to almost doubling that this past season at 35.2 attempts a game. Despite almost every player at every position shooting them now growing up, the percentage has hovered around a 35 percent average since the mid 1990s.
The answer to why is as simple as math according to Prairie Valley boy’s basketball coach Seth Stephens.
“The simple way to look at it is, if you can shoot 35 percent from three, you’re already at 1.05 points per possession,” Stephens said. “That’s a significantly lower percentage than the 50 percent you have to shoot from inside the arc to get to just one point per passion.”
In other words, a team shooting league average from the 3-point line will score as many points as team making half of its shots from inside the arc. One is easier to achieve than the other.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.