New Britain herald., 1928-02-03


 dropping SO many contests both in points and we have found it without much trouble
 Of all the games that New Britain has lost, there are only two that could not have been won, had the players been on their toes. Those two were the pair played against the At- las and difference in the scores might have been realized had the players had their shooting eyes with them. We are speaking especially Of the teams ability from the foul line.
 Investigation shows us that New Britain has played 19 games this season 50 far. The team has won 1c of them and has lost seven. Most of the losses came as a matter of only : few separating points and re- view of the play shows that the sharp shooting of the opposing team from the foul line and the poor work of the New Britain squad was the cause of the defeat.
 Hn oil, the New Britain team has had for the season so far q total of Ss6 free shots for the basket from the complimentary stripe. AS team, not speaking of individuals because all are about the same in this re- spect. only 13S points have been made from these shots. This leaves . total of 1SS misses from the foul line. The team has averaged better than 10 points in misses per game.
 In the first game of the year against the Bridgeport Laurels, New Britain won. It had 1s free tries and made four. Against the Hebrew Giants of New York. the team won. It had 1S free tries and made nine. Against the Renaissance Five the first time. it won and had 1T free tries and caged five.
 Against the Yankees of Hartford the team won but shot only 13 fouls of 2s tries. It lost to Plainfiel, by two points but caged only 10 of 20 free tries. It was defeated by the Atlas 3s to .4 making four points out of 10 free tries. The fouls would have made no difference in this game.
 Against Waterbury another vic- tory was scored but only nine Of 17 free tries were made. Again New made only 10 out of 21 tries. Seven ont of 2S was the result of the teams best efforts when 1t lost 10 tho Hartford Yankees in this city 26 to 20. It defeated Bristol B to 25 making five out of IS shots. Against Bristol again. another victory, the team scored nine out of el tries from the foul line.
 Meriden defeated New Britain 2S to 24 while the locals were caging 10 out of 20 tries from the gift stripe. Meriden downed New Britain B 10 3e in Meriden with New Britain cag- ing eight out of 16 free tries. The Atlas won here 32 to IS, New Britain making six out of 14 foul shots. Against the Holyoke Mohawks who were defeated, New Britain scored six out of ten tries from the foul line.
 Only two fouls out of 1e shots were scored as New Britain beat Meriden, narrow squeak 22 to 1s. en out of 20.
 Defeating the Renaissance Five of New York last Saturday night. the locals scored II points out of 21 shots. In Bristol Wednesday night the New Britain team was defeated .s to 14 simply because only three foul shots out of 1s were caged.
 This record is nothing less than terrible. Time after time the fans here have watched the New Britain players play rings around the oppo- sition only to be nosed out by one or two pointA New Britain gets every chance in the world to win but flubs the opportunities through weakness from the foul stripe.
 What is the answer to this? We think 1t Is insistence by the manager that the individual players spend more time gauging the distance to the basket from the complimentary stripe. Practice makes perfect and If ity of its foul shots. it would be hard 10 beat We would certainly like to see this glaring fault corrected and we only echo the sentiments of the basketball public as a whole.
 We believe this to be constructive criticism of the team because 1t is only laxity that allows the squad to go on time after time and miss 50 many shots from the foul line Every team should be efficient in this de- partment of play because it is an i'm portant one in turning in victories. All the great coaches of the country arc always harping on foul shooting and the same should be done with the New Britain team. What we want is better foul shooting and that should be the slogan of the New Britain quintet from now on.
 The New Britain Electric Light < Power Go. basketball team lost to Norwalk II to last night in an. other of the series of basket ball games played between company teams.
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