“Ricard, you’re looping those passes too high and too slow. You give the defense too much time. I want to see that ball move like a bullet, but don’t sling it with your arm. All fingers and wrists.”
“Lamb, on your hook shot you’re pushing the ball off the heel of your hand. Roll it up off your fingertips like this.”
“Okay, gang. Now run the series where Coogan is the decoy, and we make the break from the bounce pass from Zimmerman to Ricard.”
He stood with stony face and watched them go through the sequences. Last year’s team had been a shining rapier, flexible, fast as light. This squad was fast, all right. But it was a tin sword, bending as it thrust.
The trouble was that they were all so eager to do it right. He would catch them looking at him, hopefully.
“No!” he roared. “Coogan, when you take that step, slow down. Then the pass will hit you so that you can go right on up with it on a forward push. You take the step too fast and you’re beyond the basket and you’ve got to hook it up backward. That cuts your chances. Always play the percentage. Now run it again.”
On the Thursday before the game, George Lion wrote a scalding column.
We’ve had hopes that, after a slow start, Harrik would bring the Deuces up to peak. We’ve had hopes that he was aiming at the Ohio, who are beginning to look like the conference champs. But hopes are often vain.
Last week’s three games is a case in point. If Holdenberg hadn’t run out of steam during the final half, that could have been an upset. As it was, it was an upset. The Deuces should have been twenty points better.
Let’s face it. Nyeland just hasn’t got a team this year. Harrik is placing five individuals on the court. Each individual has flashes of brilliance. Each individual has desolate tangle-footed in moments. When the periods of brilliance happen to coincide, the Deuces score almost effortlessly. When the tangle-foot germ hits them, even the weakest opponents score at will. We saw the same group last year. To see them this year is a sad and unfortunate commentary on the inability of what we was a fine coach to bring out the possibilities of his team.
Last year we were saying that Harrik developed Hank Martinik. This year we’re saying that Hank carried the team — and the coach.
After he read the column, he stood by the fire, his hands clenched. Martha came touched him on the arm. “Jad, it’s only—”
“Don’t talk about it!” he snapped.
She stepped back as though he had her, her face pale. Without a word she turned and left the room. Jad balled the newspaper and threw it on the bed of coals. It smoked and then the yellow bright flames licked at it, devoured it. It turned shiny black and fragments floated up in the heat,
They were as tight as a bowstring when he talked to them before the game.
“All right,” he said quietly. “We’re underdogs tonight. Ohio is fat and happy. There’s no point in telling you I want a win. There is some point in telling you that I want you to look like a squad that’s worked together before.”
He watched them go out onto the court. He groaned inwardly. They were making too many aimless motions, wasting too much energy bouncing around. They were like a hopped-up high-school quintet, amateurish beside the controlled ease of the Ohioans.
He looked at the Ohio squad. Fran Stillwater, the six-foot-six center, was a big steel spring. Si Veeley was known for his blazing speed. Ed Chizwiak, the set-shot expert. Moe Antone, canny and deceptive. Lefty Dwyer, who could get the ball away before you knew he had touched it. They moved with that controlled insolence, that fat-cat competence that all winning combos in every sport seem to acquire.
Stalk took himself out of the first tap by going up too soon, a mistake that he hadn’t made all season. Stillwater slapped it over to Veeley. Veeley dribbled down directly at Bobby Lamb, pivoted and passed it over to Antone coming down the sideline. Antone got rid of it in a greased-lightning bounce pass behind Bobby Lamb while Bobby tried vainly to reach it. Stillwater, coming in, took the pass at his thighs as he went up into his leap, holding the ball in one hand, thrusting it gently upward and forward at the apex of his leap. It didn’t touch the rim as it whisked down through the strings.
Ben Cohen took it and passed it out to Stalk, already moving. Stalk dribbled twice and Lefty Dwyer reached out, almost delicately, and hooked the ball away. It skittered over to Chizwiak who whirled, feinted Ricard out of position, turned back and sank his set shot from forty feet.
Nyeland took it downcourt and cross-passed it, looking for the break to go in. Zimmerman whirled free and drifted over into the corner. Jad caught his breath as Ben Cohen made the pass. But somehow Chizwiak twisted and got his hand in front of the ball. Stillwater had sensed the break and he was at top speed, going down the court. Chizwiak flung the ball half the length of the court, hanging it on a hook in front of Stillwater. Stillwater dribbled, cut left and went up, dropping his shot beautifully.
Again Cohen took it and again they went down, passing hard and fast, probing for a hole in the Ohio defense. This time Zimmerman got through and missed. Stalk went up and missed the rebound, stumbling as he came down. By then Stillwater had come up and he slapped it out to Antone who flung a looping pass diagonally across-court to Chizwiak. Chizwiak took it down, making a full pivot away from Frenchy Ricard, taking it in as though to go up with it, then braking and feeding out to the side to Stillwater. Stillwater dropped it without effort.
The score stood at 8–0, with the Ohios looking good enough to make it 80-0. Nyeland rooters sat in blank, numb apathy.
At the end of ten minutes it was 15-4, and nervous Frenchy Ricard was playing with fury, tears on his cheeks. Ohio took advantage of his anger to lure him out of position and go into the slot he left open.
Jad heard the comments from the packed bleachers behind him. The game was being played in a silence so intense that you could hear the slap of rubber on the floor.
“Outclassed,” a man said, with anger in his voice. “...different when Henry was in there,” a woman said. “Come on, you tanglefoot wonders!” a drunk roared.
And, at the end of the half, it stood 33–13. The very size of the deficit seemed to render the Deuces more helpless. Jad had to sit and watch the sorry spectacle of Coogan passing to a man who wasn’t there, of Zimmerman over-running the basket when he did work his way loose, of Ricard, trying for an intercept, tapping the ball directly into the basket for an Ohio score.
He sat huddled on the bench with Paul Frieden pale and silent beside him.
The game ended, 61–30.
Jad said, “Paul, take care of things. I’m going home.”
Martha met him in the hallway. She said firmly, “Let’s not talk about it.”
“You heard it over the radio?”
“Yes.”
He gave her a tired smile. “I wish there was some way I could stop thinking about it.”
“It isn’t the end of the world, Jad.”
“The end of my world.”
She frowned at him. “You never have been really disappointed in anything before, have you? You’ve had such a plan for everything. Nothing has ever defeated you.”
“This has.”
She nodded. “I know. And maybe it’s a good thing.”
“Oh, don’t give me any pollyanna philosophy! Please!”