From: pking@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Subject: Re: Dean and the Four Corners
Date: 22 Jan 93 11:38:25 -0400
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <30008@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams) writes:
> In rec.sport.basketball.college, Curt.Hill@launchpad.unc.edu (Curt Hill) 
> writes:
> 
>  >One can gripe at Smith but he was only using the rules to win games....
>  >
>  >Dean said he was in favor of a shot clock, but if he wouldn't have 
>  >cheesed so many people off, the NCAA might still not have a shot clock 
>  >today.....
> 
> If you think that the 4 Corners or variants in the last two minutes
> of the game was bad, there was one Duke-UNC game in the 1960's that 
> probably tops it all.
> 
> Since UNC was the underdogs, UNC played the 4 Corners the entire game, 
> or nearly.
> 
> The flaw in UNC's plan was that Duke got the lead early at the start, 
> and Duke wouldn't come out of its zone defense to challenge the 4 Corners. 
> Duke won the game, 21-20.
> 
> Another example of Dean's using the rules to win games.  Or try to win
> games.
> 
> Note: I won't guarantee the accuracy of this posting since it happened
> too long ago.  Perhaps Curtis Hill could help with the details?
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Steve Williams                           swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
There may have been a game during which Dean had his team use the 4 Corners
the whole game against Duke, but I think that the game you're referring to
predates the 4 Corners.

During the 1965-66 season, several teams used a slow-down strategy against
Duke [this was the Verga-Marin-Vacendak(sp?)-Reidy-Lewis team that went to
the Final Four only to lose to Rupp's Runts in the semi's, largely due to
Bob Verga having been debilitated by a bad case of flu that week].  The
Frank McGuire-coached South Carolina Gamecocks had (nearly?) beaten Duke in
Columbia using a slow-down.  [Dean coached under or played for McGuire.]

Duke had taken both games against the Heels [led by Bobby Lewis and Larry 
Miller] during the regular season, and in those days only the winner of the
ACC tournament got to go to the Big Dance from the conference.  So, in the 
tournament finals, Dean took the air out of the ball and Vic Bubas went along
--Carolina had a quicker front line, and Bubas probably figured that, if he 
told the Devils to go man, the Heels would eat Reidy and Lewis up.  [Jack
Marin, the other starting forward, was another story.  He always drew the
opponent's biggest scorer -- held Dave Bing to under 10 points for the only
time in Bing's collegiate career when Duke met Syracuse in the Eastern Regional
Final.]

Anyway, the score was in single digits (6-5, I think) at the half, and it 
wasn't until the last two minutes or so that there was any action to speak
of.  Duke won on the clutch free-throw shooting (sound familiar?) of 
freshman center Mike Lewis.  

I think that it was the next year that the 5-second line was introduced, and it
was to overcome the limitations that the 5-second line imposed that Dean came
up with the 4 Corners.  

All of the above is based on memory; anyone with access to better data, feel 
free to correct any errors.

Peter King
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia 
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college