NEW FOUL-SHOOTING RULE IMPROVES BASKETBALL

"The new rule about foul-shooting is a big thing for basketball," said Coach Wachter of the University team to a CRIMSON reporter yesterday. The rule to which he referred provides that the man who is fouled shall make the free throw himself instead of allowing any member of the team to make the attempt.

"Our first two games," went on Coach Wachter, "have shown just how the rule is going to work. It speeds up the game, helps to eliminate roughness, and makes the development of the passing attack necessary. The big point in its favor is that it will do away with the importance of the foul-shooting specialist. Basketball was always supposed to be a five-man game. But what happened? An expert foul-shooter became the deciding factor in every close contest. For example, Captain Cullen of Dartmouth scored 23 points out of a possible 25 in the Harvard-Dartmouth game last winter. A game in which half of a team's points can be scored by one talented player from the foul line is not a five-man game.

"The new rule does away with all that. There will be no more games decided by one man's skill in foul shooting. As a result there will be fewer fouls. Many teams have been coached to draw fouls deliberately. That practice will stop, or at least be materially lessened.

"I am glad to see the rule adopted in the amateur game. It has been successfully used for several years in professional basketball. In fact, my brother and myself introduced the rule to the professional game in the New York State League seven or eight years ago. That accounts to some extent for my enthusiasm for it now."

When asked to compare the foul shooting specialist to the drop-kicking specialist in football, Coach Wachter said. "The two are entirely different The drop-kick is a recognized offensive measure. It takes a strong attack for a team to get into position for a field-goal. In basketball, a chance to shoot a foul is the result of a penalty. It is no credit to the team that benefits by it. It is due entirely to a mistake by its opponents. Furthermore, fouls occur constantly in basketball, but in football chances for drop-kicks are limited in almost every case to three or four a game. There is no reason for a change in football, but the change in basketball was needed for the good of the game."