Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 4, 1990 TAG: 9003042002
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: bob teitlebaum
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Is the 3-point goal too easy for high school basketball, as some have suggested it is for college basketball? Not based on regular-season statistics in Timesland.
Three years ago, the players who qualified for the Roanoke Times & World-News' weekly statistics (an average of three attempts per game is needed) made 37.6 percent of their 3-point attempts. That figure dropped to 36.9 percent last season and 35.5 percent this season.
Five players have qualified for the stats all three years. They are: North Cross' Eric Walker, George Wythe's Jamie Lee, Covington's Adaryl Twitty, Franklin County's Mark Mitchell and Glenvar's Mike Decker.
Only Decker had a higher 3-point percentage as a senior than he did as a sophomore. Percentages for the other four fell, and in some cases the drop looked like the Dow Jones Average on Black Monday.
Walker shot 44.3 percent as a sophomore, when he attempted 61 3-pointers. In the past two seasons, his attempts increased dramatically. He led Timesland with 205 in 1988-89 and 233 this season.
That might explain some of the drop in his percentage, but Walker made only 38.5 percent last year and then fell to 36.5 percent as a senior with a similar number of shots.
Jim Muscaro, North Cross' coach, said the decline in Walker's 3-point shooting percentage was a result of the Raiders' inability to score inside.
Lee actually took more shots (102) as a sophomore than as a senior (75), but his percentage dropped from 41.2 percent to 37.3 percent this season.
Twitty is the only junior who has been listed since the shot was added. As a freshman, he hit 39.1 percent. Last season, when Covington made the state tournament, he took more shots and connected 26.8 percent of the time. This season, his accuracy improved slightly to 27.9 percent.
Mitchell is the real mystery. As Franklin County's team improved, his shooting percentage became worse. He hit 41.1 percent as a sophomore and 34.7 percent last season on more than double the number of shots he took in 1987-88. This season, he made 16 of 80 (20 percent). He also took 21 fewer shots than he did as a junior.
"We've seen more man-to-man in this time span," said Ed Holstrom, Franklin County's coach. "I think the pace of the game is up tremendously. When Mark was a sophomore, we weren't pushing the ball up and down the court. We were patient on offense. The faster pace makes it tougher for us to get 3-point shots and be consistent.
"Also, we've seen the box-and-one or triangle-and-two defense [on Carlos Trotter and Mitchell] this year."
It's interesting to note that the Timesland leader two seasons ago, Chris Wilson of Staunton River, shot 47.3 percent from 3-point range. Last season, Martinsville's Travis Wells (50.8 percent) barely beat out Magna Vista's Chad Ford (50.6 percent). This season, Wells made 61.4 percent to finish far ahead of the field.
"We kind of give him the green light because he's had such success," said Husky Hall, Martinsville's coach.
"Travis has had so many box-and-one defenses on him that he hasn't looked for the 3-point play. But if teams play a wide zone, we take the ball in and throw it back out to Travis. We don't advocate, `Let's shoot the 3.' We leave it to the player's discretion."
The William Fleming boys' 800-meter relay team, which won the Group AAA indoor track title in a time of 1 minute, 30.95 seconds, had the best high school time in the country this year according to Track and Field News. The team was made up of Mike Wheatley, Carlos Hurt, Don Smith and Chris Robinson.
Wheatley, a transfer from Northside, finished second in the Group AAA 55-meter dash with a time of 6.36. The winner was Richmond Huguenot's Jermaine Jerman, whose time of 6.28 is the nation's fastest among prep runners. Wheatley's time is second.
Pulaski County people talk about their school's dwindling enrollment, but it's nothing like the drop at West Potomac.
The Wolverines won the Group AAA Division 6 football title this year, but next year they'll be in Division 5 under the new Virginia High School League alignment.
West Potomac opened five years ago with an enrollment of nearly 2,500. That figure is down to 1,165 students.
by CNB