ALL THE MOVES: A History of College Basketball

The great American sport"" from its inception in a Springfield, Mass. YMCA in 1891 up to the present day. Author Isaacs focuses on the various rule changes and trends which continue to alter the course of play--""Around 1930 two momentous developments took place: zone defenses began to move and the fast break began to fly. . . . By the end of the Forties the classic confrontation in basketball was no longer East vs. West, it was now fast break against ball control."" The game is seen to have come of age in the mid-'30s with the emergence of its first national superstar, Hank Luisetti--the sport became an official Olympic event in 1936 and the NCAA Championships got underway in '39. Basketball's ever-increasing popularity is reflected in its most innovative coaches (Walter ""Doc"" Meanwell, Henry ""Doc"" Carlson, George Keogan, Phog Allen at Kansas, Adolph Rupp of Kentucky, Oklahoma A&M's Hank Iba, and the recently retired wizard of UCLA, John Wooden) and its most dominant players (Mikan, Cousy, West, Russell, Robertson and Alcindor). An adequate reference albeit a bit on the heavy side--""Contemporary basketball is the art of putting together concrete individual moves within coherent patterns of abstractable movement."" You might prefer to practice your jump shot.