Chaminade has upset Texas and California at the Maui Invitational in recent years, largely due to 3-point shooting. In 2012, the Silverswords hit 10 of 30 3-pointers compared to four of 21 for the Longhorns on the way to an 86-73 win. Five years later, it was the ’Swords over the Bears 96-72, with Dantley Walker making seven of 10 from beyond the arc.
So how many 3-pointers did the Silverswords make in their most famous upset, the 77-72 toppling of No. 1 Virginia?
Well, if you know your basketball history, you know that’s a trick question. The answer is zero, since that upset — which some still call the greatest in college basketball history — was played in 1982, and the 3-point line was not adopted across the NCAA until 1986.
How much more would Chaminade have won by if there was a 3-point line back then?
“Tough question,” said Mark Rodrigues, who played for the ’Swords in that game. “The game would’ve been played differently. We had more outside shooters, but Virginia would’ve recruited differently if that was the game then. I’ll just say that we would’ve won by at least the same amount.”
Outside shooting was a key for Chaminade in that victory, as ’Swords center Tony Randolph hit some perimeter jumpers. They were not from what would later become 3-point range, but they did the job of getting the Cavaliers’ 7-foot-4 All-America center Ralph Sampson out of the paint.
This was just a few years after Gavin Smith, a transfer from UCLA, led the University of Hawaii with 23.4 points per game. Smith was a gunner, scoring from everywhere on the court (but the 6-foot-6 forward managed to lead UH in rebounds, too). He’s a player who definitely would have benefited from a 3-point line — and perhaps the Rainbows as a team would have, too, since that squad went 9-18.
That same season, 1976-77, forward Jay “The Bird” Bartholomew averaged 21.7 points leading Hawaii Hilo to a 23-3 record and the second round of the NAIA national tournament. The Vulcans didn’t go as far as some other Hawaii small college teams did later, but they captured the imagination of the state.
“Jay and I shot a lot from outside of what is now 3-point range,” said Bill O’Rear, a guard on that team who averaged 11.1 points and 5.4 assists. “If a defense was not out on us at 23 feet, it was too late.”
Yes, it is a common refrain: “What if that arc existed back when I played?”
But it’s not as much a case of revisionist history as when Uncle Rico of “Napoleon Dynamite” laments not winning states because his coach didn’t put him in to play quarterback. No one can throw a ball over those mountains, but a lot of basketball players could — and did — throw a ball through a hoop from more than 20 or 24 feet.
Pete Maravich averaged 44.2 points per game in three seasons at LSU (1967-‘70) and is still the NCAA all-time scoring leader. His coach, Dale Brown, claimed he charted it, and that Maravich would have scored 57 points an outing if the 3-point line had existed during his college years.
Remember, this was also before the shot clock, thus cutting into the number of possessions each team would have.
Maravich’s 11-year NBA career ended in 1979-’80 with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics. Due to bad knees, he’d been relegated to role-player status. It was his only season with the 3-point line, and Maravich made 10 of the 15 he shot in games, good for 67 percent.
Bobby Curran, the longtime radio voice of University of Hawaii basketball and football, was a shooting guard at Maria Regina School in Long Island, N.Y., in the mid-1970s. He didn’t always have the green light, but he took it anyway.
“(The coaches) were OK with the top of the key; other than that, they looked askance,” Curran said. “I would debate with my high school coach because he’d want me to get a closer shot. I’d tell him, ‘You’re better off with me from 20 feet than so-and-so from 8 feet.’ It’s not about how far it is, it’s about who’s shooting it.”
When Curran went off to college and to walk on at William & Mary, the same coach told him to ignore what he’d told him and to shoot whenever he could, because “the last guy they’ll cut is a shooter.”
Curran made the JV team as a freshman; he was once put into a game with the Tribe trailing late and told to shoot every time he got the ball. “I scored 11 points in 4 1/2 minutes,” he said. “I wish I had (the 3-point shot). It would’ve changed my arc.”
I’m not sure if that pun was intended.
At least one former player likes the game the way it was, though — and it’s Rodrigues, who was a guard and likely would have benefited from having the line. He is not a fan of how the 3-point shot has spread the court and changed basketball.
“I hate the modern-day game, especially the NBA,” Rodrigues said. “Way too perimeter-oriented. No inside presence on both sides of the court.
“The lanes are wide open, so a guy like (James) Harden can dribble 20 times, get by his man and not face much resistance at the rim, and anywhere in between.”
Some foresee a 4-point line — maybe soon.
But what about Rodrigues and others who would like to see a return to war in the paint?
Three points for a dunk, anybody?