USD Men's Basketball 1996-1997

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T he variety in basketball terminology for positions has become nearly epidemic. owadays, you can be a lead guard, a point guard , a shooting guard, an off– guard, a combo guard , a center, a pivot player. You can play the low post, the high post, the low block or the low box. You can prowl the perimeter or mi x it up in the lane. Whew. Who's on first? At quick glance, it seems that perhaps the forward position is the one that is pretty set, jargon-wi se. There is the four, who, as college basketball expert and former coach Dick Vitale says, is "defined as power. We want rebounding from him." Hence, we call him the power forward. Then there is the small forward, or three, who is expected to score, handle the ball a little, play D and chip in some rebounding. "Can he step away from the basket? Run the court? Is he a ballhandler? Is he fin esse?" asked Vitale. "Then he's a three." But there are wrinkles. Is he a wing? Then there's also the latest position craze, popularized by Scottie Pippen's success at the forefront of th e Chicago Bulls offense. "That's the point-forward," said Fordham coach Nick Macarchuk. "That's the '90s. ow when you're recruiting a kid who is a forward , you can tell him the ball is going to go through him. "When we played...everyone kind of knew where they were supposed to play. Coach didn't have to say to the poi nt guard, 'Handle the ball'- we always just understood. "If you were not good on offense, you played close to th e basket and rebounded. Now we have so many different posi– tions. It's absolutely amazing. "We spoil kids. You make them into a position where they or their family think they want to play....They've watched Larry, Magi c and Mi chael, so they know

their position. We didn't know." Said former UCLA coach John Wooden: "I don't go along with the power and small fo1ward thing, either. You want rebounding, primarily, from your forward s, but it's still a five-man responsibility. I wanted five rebound– ers. I don't think it's necessary to have a specific power forward . I played my best forwards." While in Wooden's day fo1wards might have toiled for boards in anonymity, today's game o.f:Ie1s the three-pointe1; the chest bump and the fans' appreciation ofpower jams to a frontcowt player looking to make a name for himsel( Whatever the

vocabulary, the for– ward seems to have evolved into two dis– tinct entities. Bruisers

By Anthony McCarron