Women’s basketball has never enjoyed more popularity than it does at the present time. And I don’t see the womans basketball game doing anything other than getting more popular and drawing more attendance every year. This goes for girls basketball at the youth level, high school girls basketball, women's college basketball, and women's professional basketball. I think the steady rise in popularity has more to do with the game itself, not some random gender issue. But, regardless of the reason, I’m often asked, “What’s the difference between boys and girls basketball?”
Many want to emphasize the differences between boys and girls basketball. I don’t, and here’s why... I played my high school and college hoops during the 70’s, in the great state of Tennessee. At that time, it was easy to answer the question regarding the difference between boys and girls basketball. Girls basketball, at least below the college level, was played on the half-court. Each team had 3 girls on offense at one end of the court and 3 girls on defense on the other end. The 3 offensive players were called forwards and the 3 defensive players were called guards. Neither set of girls could cross the half-line. If Team A’s forwards scored, then Team B’s guards had to take the ball out of bounds and dribble up to the half-court (usually against the 3 forwards who were now pressing and trapping up to the half-court). Team B’s forwards were waiting at the half-line to receive the ball. You might think that Team A’s guards would try to steal the pass at the half-line, but if they moved too close to the half-line, the forwards would go back-door, and that’s too much space for the defense to recover. Often, two of the guards would try to pressure the half-line pass while one guard protected the goal. There were all kinds of ways of causing havoc at the half-court, as you can imagine. But the half-court offense could be appreciated by anyone who’s played 3 on 3.
So what's my point? Well, it was easy to see the difference between boys and girls basketball because boys played a normal full court version, and girls basketball was restricted to this half and half thing. And so I remember asking the question at the time, “Why don’t the girls play 5 on 5 the way the boys do?” Invariably, I got one of three answers:
(1) They’ve always done it that way! Even in high school, I didn’t like that answer for this question or any other. (Editor's Note: This statement by Coach Torbett defines one of the most important aspects of the Better Basketball DVDs. The videos don't just state, "do this." They always state WHY as well. This means you'll understand the purpose to all of the techniques on our videos. And if you truly understand something, you're more likely to apply it to your game.)
(2) Girls can’t take it physically. I knew first hand that wasn’t the case. My high school coach, Jim Cornwall (NJCAA All-American and point guard for the University of Tennessee under legendary coach Ray Mears) was originally from Philadelphia. Every summer, he would take the top 6 players from our high school team to camp in Pennsylvania. It was run by his former JUCO coach, Howie Landa (3 time NJCAA national coach of the year at Mercer Community College where his teams competed for the National Championship four times, winning it twice) and NBA legend Dave Bing (Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990 and named one of the 50 greatest players ever). We would spend 4–6 weeks each summer playing against the best from the northeast. Howie was pushing for a women’s pro league for years and because of his influence, the camp was visited by some of the best women players in that area. It was during his camp that I was first exposed to 5 on 5 women’s basketball from the likes of Theresa Shank, who had just entered Immaculata University, and some girl named Nancy Lieberman, who was only a sophomore in high school. (In my defense, how could I know that Theresa Shank (Grentz) would become a member of 3 National Championship Teams at Immaculata University, become a 3-time All-American, score over 1,000 career points, serve as the President of the WBCA (Women’s Basketball Coaches Association), become the coach of the 1992 USA Women’s Basketball Team, coach at St Josephs, Rutgers, and presently head coach at the University of Illinois since 1994? How could I have guessed that this youngster named Nancy Lieberman, at the age of 18, would became the youngest basketball player in Olympic history to win a medal as the US team captured a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics? She became a three-time All-America at Old Dominion University, leading the Lady Monarchs to back-to-back AIAW National Championships in 1979 and 1980. She was twice named as the Wade Trophy winner, symbolic of the women's National Player of the Year, and was twice named as the Broderick Cup winner as the nation's top female athlete. In her career at ODU, Lieberman scored 2,430 points, grabbed 1,167 rebounds, and dished out a record 961 assists, a mark that still stands upon her enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Over those two championship seasons, Lieberman guided the Lady Monarchs to a 72-2 record. She was the number one draft choice of the Dallas Diamonds of the Women's American Basketball Association in 1980 and led the Diamonds to the league title in 1985. She then made history once again in 1986 and 1987 as she became the first female to play in a men's professional league, signing with the Springfield Fame of the United States Basketball League. She enjoyed yet another first as she became the first female ever inducted in the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame. Currently, Lieberman works as a basketball analyst and studio analyst for ESPN's coverage of men's and women's college basketball, the WNBA, and the NBDL. On January 16, 2004, she became coach of the Dallas Fury of the National Women's Basketball League.)
Now, back to my education: at night, when the camp was over, we would play full-court pick-up games well into the night, often with a mix of boys and girls. The first few games, I played the way my parents raised me, with good-old-southern manners - be nice and don’t hurt the girls. But then, Theresa Shank smacked my shot into the cheap seats and blocked me out so hard that my hip almost went out of joint. And then I chased Nancy Lieberman up and down the court, watching her almost dunk on me! Finally I got someone to switch with me; you know how this goes: Nancy uses a pick, I call “Switch!” and then I say, “Stay with her, I’ve got yours ... for the rest of the game!” Needless to say, I came home with a new and deepened respect for female basketball, having just seen two players that would go down in woman's basketball history. Of course, no one back home believed me at the time, but I saw Nancy Lierbman grab, not touch, but grab the rim at 5"9! I was 6"3 and only jumping a little higher than her! Those girls could play, and were actually flat out better than some of the boys. It became a little easier to live with when I saw these two women adorn the cover of Sports Illustrated a few years later.
(3) The third answer (and the only one that held any water) was, “The reason we haven’t changed girls basketball to 5 on 5 is that the girls outdraw the boys in attendance at the state tournament.”
Eventually, Tennessee, like the rest of the states, was dragged into the 20th century and basketball was played the same way regardless of the gender. During my lifetime, I’ve seen the differences between boys and girls basketball dwindle to practically nothing.
With that being said, I now get asked the question quite often, but in a slightly different form: Do you teach girls any differently than you teach guys? My answer is still “NO”. And I want to emphasize that "NO" especially in the area of shot development. If you watch Better Basketball's first video, Better Shooting, you’ll notice no distinctions by gender. Here’s why: The arms and hands (where guys are typically much stronger) should primarily be used to guide the ball to goal. So a difference of strength doesn’t mean much. The power to get the ball to the rim is generated mostly from the legs and the core of the body. There’s not much difference in leg and glute strength between boys and girls, especially in their younger years. |
