“From Barack Obama to the Sixth Principle of Zone Offense”
Posted by Steve Bzomowski on February 19, 2007
Barack Obama is the junior senator from Illinois. He’s also running for President. Obama’s wife, Michelle, is the sister of Craig Robinson, two-time Ivy League Men’s Basketball Player of the Year at Princeton and now the head coach at Brown University. Not long ago, Robinson was a teammate of Arne Duncan, now CEO of the Chicago Public Schools (and former standout cager at Harvard) when they won numerous nationwide “HOOP-It-UP” Three-on-Three tournaments after their respective overseas careers concluded. Arne Duncan, at 6′5″, was so unathletic that to call him unathletic would be generous, but was also so good (think a slinkier Chris Mullin) that his senior season at Harvard in a game at Boston College, he scored 14 straight points by himself. No one else from either side scored; think of that. (After having an eight point second half lead, we blew a breakaway dunk and then blew the game, 87-86.) Many of his hoops were scored from underneath the basket, seemingly coming from out of bounds, or, at least, from behind the backboard. He was and is the finest practitioner of the sixth principle of (The Seven Principles) zone offense that I have ever seen.
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February 23, 2007 at 10:29 am
Craig Robinson was a player, I remember with chagrin from watching him at Jadwin Gym and the Palestra. But when thinking about 80s hoops and the 6th Principle, the name that leapt to my mind was the pride of Rutgers, Jammin’ James Bailey. Side to side he’d run the baseline, waiting for the defense to turn their heads and the lob pass to go up. And he knew how to finish. If the pros ran a 2-3 defense he’d have been a hall of famer.
February 23, 2007 at 11:37 am
And, come to think of it, a slew of Orangemen: Derrick Coleman, Seikaly, Stevie Thompson, Red Bruin getting in behind the defense and throwing them down.