Pete never beat UK in 6 tries.after he scored 64 against UK in Memorial Coliseum..I asked him for his wrist bands,,He replied" take em you've taken everything else" ..He was a tremendous talent..No supporting cast..
More impressive....Meeks' 54 or Issel's 53?
- Thread starter EvilMD
- Start date
Here are the numbers that we can use...
............................FG....3FG.....FT...Reb..Ass..Stl.
Jodie Meeks......15-22 10-15 14-14 8*....4*....1
Dan Issel............23-34 xx-xx...7-7...19....?.....?
* second highest on team that night
More in depth argument for Meeks: Meeks was the only UK player that night in double figures, was second on the team in rebounds and assists. Two other players combined for 38 points in Issel's game, where his point total wasn't even half what UK scored.
More in depth argument for Issel: He had more made field goals than Meeks even attempted (mind blown). Meeks got 10 of his 54 points on the extra point awarded for the three. Issel hauled in 19 rebounds. 53 and 19 looks better than 54 and 8.
............................FG....3FG.....FT...Reb..Ass..Stl.
Jodie Meeks......15-22 10-15 14-14 8*....4*....1
Dan Issel............23-34 xx-xx...7-7...19....?.....?
* second highest on team that night
More in depth argument for Meeks: Meeks was the only UK player that night in double figures, was second on the team in rebounds and assists. Two other players combined for 38 points in Issel's game, where his point total wasn't even half what UK scored.
More in depth argument for Issel: He had more made field goals than Meeks even attempted (mind blown). Meeks got 10 of his 54 points on the extra point awarded for the three. Issel hauled in 19 rebounds. 53 and 19 looks better than 54 and 8.
Last edited:
Being Dan's teammate ..I have a unique perspective.Dan was a humble hard worker.He earned all he got.He was not a great outside shooter when he came to UK .3 years before me,but so he says.He became one..He was king of the head fake.a lost art.I met Jodie several times he seemed very soft spoken.Issel called Jodie a day after Jodie set the record and congratulated him..A real classy thing to do..But that is Dan Issel for you..
Dan only missed 1 shot that night? That's impressive, don't care who he played against. I'm old school, so I'll go with Issel's performance. But Jodie's was so damn fun to watch also.
Yeah, but Issel got 12 more shot attempts than Meeks. The way Meeks was shooting he probably would have got 65+ with 34 attempts. So yeah, Meeks gets those 10 extra from the 3, but Issel had a huge advantage on attempts due to the let's not play much D style of the day and the pace of the game.
Both were tremendous and impressive, but I'll go with Issel. Granted the game was much higher scoring, but in addition to having no 3 pt line there was also no shot clock. That says a lot about Rupp I think who's teams were often known for being high scoring in the era before either of the above rules. Also Issel's game was no fluke. He was a consistently high scorer.
Lots of games were high scoring in that era. It's sad really that despite the 3 pointer and shot clock we are often to forced to watch painfully slow paced games these days despite being played by what are much more athletic young men the result of all the changes that have occurred over the last 50 years in terms of coaching, conditioning, improved diet, etc. A topic of course well discussed around here.
Lots of games were high scoring in that era. It's sad really that despite the 3 pointer and shot clock we are often to forced to watch painfully slow paced games these days despite being played by what are much more athletic young men the result of all the changes that have occurred over the last 50 years in terms of coaching, conditioning, improved diet, etc. A topic of course well discussed around here.
While 19 rebounds is a great accomplishment, 8 rebounds for a guard that is shooting 2/3 of his shots from 3 is very impressive. Plus Meeks actually involved other players with 4 assists as well. Add these accomplishments to his points and I am leaving toward Meeks as being better. I never saw Issel play so that can have an effect on my opinion. I don't think you can go wrong with either choice though.
How much "harder" is it when you're talking about playing in a game where UK took 95 shots (and Ole Miss took 72) versus a game where UK took 53 shots (and UT took 66)?
Issel's senior year, he took 25 or more shots 13 times. The fewest he ever took was 15.
In Meeks' junior year, he took 25 or more shots once, and took 15 or fewer 19 times.
Both accomplishments were impressive. But to willfully ignore the huge differences between the 2 eras that worked in Issel's favor and just flat declare that Issel's was better because "he did it the hard way" is wrong.
I agree with you that athletes have certainly gotten better over time. The reason being that there are a multitude of reasons for today's athletes being better than athletes in the past (both in terms of basketball and track & field among other sports). Nutrition is a big one, specialization in one sport to the point that they are training year-round, specialized coaching, supplements, weight training, advances in medicine etc. If anything it should be expected.
The key question is given that, how to evaluate the significance of people's accomplishment's during different eras?
In the example of Bannister, the fact that athletes routinely break the four minute mile today doesn't in any way lessen the significance of his achievement at the time IMO.
Neither are the accomplishments of Jesse Owens as compared to Carl Lewis as compared to Usain Bolt. IMO they all need to be evaluated within the context of the era they lived in.
Jesse Owens, for example, accomplished what he did during the depth of the Great Depression. To not take these differences in account is fundamentally unfair IMO.
Actually the idea that today's game is up-and-down while in the old times the game was 'slow' is one of the biggest misconceptions people have about basketball.
Jon, as always I really enjoy your data and perspective. I would like to get your opinion on what was going on between the years of approximately 1975 and 1983 on the number of NCAA average field goal attempts. I notice that the NCAA data is rather smooth and shallow sloped before and after that time. However, there was a fairly steep drop of approximately 68 to 58 attempts on goal. That doesn't sound like a huge drop but it certainly gives the appearance of being out of character with changes in other similar time frames.
The only significant thing I can put my finger on it Rupp's departure in 72 meaning that his influence would be lost from 72-73 onward. And from personal observation, I can say that coaches were shifting their philosophy from pushing the ball offensively to very aggressive defense and higher percentage shot selection around that time. The three point shot didn't account for the dip as that did not come into play until the mid to late 80's. Now the dunk came back into the picture in the mid 70's but I wouldn't have figured it would have exerted a downward pressure on number of attempts on goal.
Is it possible that Rupp's departure was so strongly felt by the game? Could his retirement have actually caused a trend toward the "defense first" mindset? Surely not, but I thought it was an interesting trend in the data for that 8 years.
Jon I think that's a question of the significance of my "were":
"...guys were beating Bannister's time, all without anything really changing in the sport..."
Bannister's record was broken twice within two months. Within ten years a high school kid beat it. By 1976 John Walker had beaten it by ten seconds. None of the things I mentioned (nutrition, population, sports science) had changed very dramatically in that time.
That's much different than if I said nothing has changed in the sport of track today---when you have roughly the same changes that apply to basketball and Roger's record has been bested by 17 seconds. There were no changes in track whatsoever two months after Bannister, and few changes 22 years later. The modern era is very different but my logic doesn't need it not to be.
But the reason I spoke about new track records in Bannister's same era was to establish that athletes in any sport get better continually. I could have chosen an example from any sport but Bannister's example is best known; it's also the purest measure since there is no defense in track. Athletes improve progressively even when they don't have the advantages of new developments such as the ones I listed. Then you add those advantages and you wind up with athletes that are in general a lot better. I certainly wasn't trying to take anything away from Jesse Owens, only establishing that athletes generally get better over time.
Basketball has proven to be a sport where improvements in athleticism (as well as changes in defensive style which I briefly mentioned and we should all know of) have favored the defense and therefore made offensive heroics more significant when they occur.
As a result, Jodie's 54 points vs. better defense is more significant to me than Dan's 53 points on lower percentage shooting vs. poorer defense. Obviously a lot of people disagree with me, but I continue to believe that's nostalgia speaking. I'm a realist. I'm a republican but I freely admit Reagan's approval rating now is much higher than it ever was while he was president.
Here's to the Good Old Days.
Also, no one ever mentions this, but the three point line wasn't necessarily working in Jodie's favor. That line meant that Jodie's outside shots were way more contested than Dan's were. Since Jodie didn't have Dan's size he relied more heavily on outside shots, but he had a much tougher job of finding them and/or creating them.
Dan hit a lot of outside shots too as many people point out. And while yes, on the one hand, they gave him fewer points per shot, on the other hand they were also easy pickins. Jodie didn't have that.
Dan hit a lot of outside shots too as many people point out. And while yes, on the one hand, they gave him fewer points per shot, on the other hand they were also easy pickins. Jodie didn't have that.
Last edited:
Issel played for a legend. Jodie played for BCG. Career goes to Dan. One game goes to Jodie!
I think we underestimate the accomplishment of breaking some of those barriers, like the 4 minute mile. Also, the training methods and venues have improved dramatically over the years. I'm not sure the talent itself has improved so much as the availability of competent coaching, training facilities have improved to the masses.
If you want a case study on how the trend toward athletic improvement is a bit fickle, do a bit of research on the freak show that was Bob Beamon. What he did was impossible by most schools of thought. Then read up on how the guy to break his long jump record after a many many years finished second in that meet.
Performance improvements are as much a function of science and opportunity as they are improvement in the human organism itself. Maybe more.
I knew Dan too (and Cheri). He was an ornery cuss on the court, but a quality gentleman otherwise. Jodie's bombs had more flash, but Dan gets my biased vote.I was on the UK Bench at the Issel game(Student Manager) Issel was unstoppable and Ole Miss had no real center.Issel had 4 fouls and really charged at the 5 minute mark,,The Referee Old Lou Bello looked at Rupp and then at Ole Miss and slyly called blocking.Cob Jarvis (Ole Miss Coach) cussed up a storm ,but to no avail.Issel was a special player..Meeks had a great night Kudos to him He deserves the glory but The Horse did it for 3 years,,Big Dan is the bell ringer for me..
Issel scored his 53 for the NUMBER ONE team in the country.
Meeks scored his 54 for an NIT team. Big big difference. Heck the best team Jodie ever played for was an 8 seed.
Meeks scored his 54 for an NIT team. Big big difference. Heck the best team Jodie ever played for was an 8 seed.
If Issel had the benefit of the 3 point line we wouldn't have this discussion but different times, don't want t say one was better than the other one, their both part of our tradition, wish Meeks would have hung around for Cals first year, boom another banner, think of the possibilities![[winking]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/wink.r191677.gif "Winking [winking]")
I'm not Jon Scott, but my memory says Dean Smith's 4 corners crap brought about that messy era of boredom. Rules changes fixed it (with the 5 second hash, closely guarded rule, and eventually possession clock.
Tremendous performance by both guys. Have to go with Issell because there was no 3-point goal plus being an inside player.
In general I don't think one can attribute an overall change to a single coach, no matter how influential. Remember the red dots in the charts are for the overall NCAA average, which at any given time could represent the average of between 200 and over 300 schools.
Again, here's the chart showing FGA over time.
The chart showing possessions per game doesn't go back as far but does capture the time frame in question and shows a similar trend.
If you look at just the blue dots (UK) then coach Hall did retain the pace at least until 1976, but it slowly dropped thereafter in concert with the NCAA average.
Why the slowing of pace during that time, I don't know. There were a few things going on at the time, including widespread integration of teams (i.e. much more significant than the tokenism that occurred before even among schools that had been signing black players).
I think that the game itself was getting rougher, which in part can be attributed to people like Coach Hall among others who were emphasizing strength and conditioning along with defense.
Of course as mentioned, you also have people like Dean Smith who were using stall tactics etc. which certainly didn't help matters.
As you can see from the charts, the drop in pace was finally arrested in the mid-80's, in concert with the adoption of the shot clock and three-point line, and there was a brief uptick in the early 90's but that has since dropped down to some of the lowest levels seen in modern history (if not before).
That's why you hear a constant rattle among some (including myself BTW) that the NCAA needs to take some pretty drastic steps to clean up the game and make it more appealing. Some of the proposed steps made in the past few years look to be promising, but they need to see them through.
Big Dan gets my vote too. could score from inside and out. Meeks had a lot of wide open looks in that game. glad he made them but Dan's performance was more impressive.
Issel. Sure, maybe defense was better when Meeks was playing, but it was not more physical. BB is more of a pansy sport now than back in the day, when big guys were mugged. Issel always had 2-3 guys draped all over him, whole shooting threes you are generally wide open. It's awesome when you make them but sometimes it's just luck, rhythm or whatever. I get it young folks always think modern era players were better, but that is fools gold. Give the old time the modern equipment, sups and training of today and you would be surprised.
And Pistol Peter always outscored Issel because Rupp wanted it that way, and he won every game doing it that way too. He said shut everyone else down and let Pete get his because one man cannot beat a team. He was right. I see kids today say Pete was nothing special too but that is insane as well.
And Pistol Peter always outscored Issel because Rupp wanted it that way, and he won every game doing it that way too. He said shut everyone else down and let Pete get his because one man cannot beat a team. He was right. I see kids today say Pete was nothing special too but that is insane as well.
Pe
Rupp said "let Pete have his points and shut down the other 4 turds" Pete's theatrics (behind the back dribbling and no look passing ) aggravated him to no end.Pete was once in a lifetime player..I am still in awe of his ability.
I disagree. Jodie was a great shooter, but he had a bunch of uncontested shots against UT. Issel was double teamed, constantly. They may play better overall team defense today, vs 1969-70, but individually, Issel had a tougher time than Jodie did. Had there been a 3 pt shot, Issel may have had 4 or 5 more pts in that game. With 18 rebounds to go along with the 53 pts, and no 3 pt shots, Dan has to win this discussion.
Romanticize all you want, but sorry. This is completely, objectively wrong.
Video exists of basketball in the 60's and early 70's. To anyone watching from today's perspective, it appears that 0 defense was being played back then. Less than 0, really. That's because almost any contact with an offensive player was called a foul, which is absolutely NOT the case today, and the main reason why college basketball games are now played with scores in the 60's instead of the 90's.
Last edited:
This is intensely delusional. I'm not all that young, either. Just objective.
Thank you for proving my point about nostalgia.
Similar threads
