Pressure & Percentages

Sitting in the University of Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium one June night in 1960, a stocky, crew-cut man gloomily watched a lanky, 6-ft. 5-in. Negro walk up to collect his diploma. The spectator's name was Ed Jucker, and he had just been named Cincinnati's basketball coach. The Negro's name was Oscar Robertson, and he was the best college basketball player of his time. Graduating with "The Big O" were two other starters from a flashy squad that ranked No. 2 in the nation the season before. "I was sick," recalls Jucker. "Our tickets were all sold out for 1961. Our opponents were thirsting for revenge. And I sat there and thought. 'There go 55 of our 87 points a game."

"If It Didn't Work." With Robertson in the lineup, Cincinnati was a run-and-shoot team that delighted fans with its hipper-dipper attack--but never won a national championship. When Jucker took over, Cincinnati abruptly became deliberate and defense-minded. "I asked myself where I was going to make up all those points," he says. "I decided that maybe if we gave up only 40 points a game, we wouldn't need to score much. But I knew I was asking for trouble. If it didn't work, I was dead." It worked so well that Jucker's Bearcats have lost only five games out of 68, won two straight N.C.A.A. championships, and are strong favorites to win a third. Last week, beating stubborn Dayton 44-37, No. 1-ranked Cincinnati won its seventh game and 25th in a row--longest winning streak in college basketball.

An assistant at Cincinnati before moving up to the top job. Jucker, 45, is a master of such complicated tactics as the Backdoor Trap and the Swing-and-Go, plays designed to spring a Cincinnati player, all alone, under the enemy basket. He dotes on "the science of percentage basketball, " computes the mathematical odds on the success of every maneuver he orders the Bearcats to make on court. Methodical on offense, Cincinnati concentrates on ball control, passing the ball back and forth, patiently waiting for an enemy defense to make the error that will leave a Bearcat player open for a "high-percentage" shot within 15 ft. of the basket. "On defense," says Jucker, "we try to pressure opponents into a pattern they are not used to playing. We want them to play another game, a game they don't know."

Elbows & Springs. Most topflight college teams rely primarily on the all-round wizardry of one gifted player. Kentucky has its Cotton Nash, Duke has Art Heyman, and pre-Jucker Cincinnati had Robertson. This year's Bearcat squad has no one player whose talent towers over the rest; instead, it is a well-coordinated collection of specialists. Center George Wilson is a 6-ft. 8-in. giraffe from Chicago who turned down 89 other college offers to go to Cincinnati; his job is to control the backboards, and his sharp elbows have helped him pull down 81 rebounds so far this year. Forward Tom Thacker, "the tallest 6-ft. 2-in. player in basketball." is so spring-legged that he can get up above the 10-ft.-high basket and "dunk" the ball with both hands--just as the pros' 7-ft. Wilt Chamberlain does. Forward Ron Bonham (6 ft. 5 in.) is a bull-shouldered marksman whose delicate push shot is accurate from as far away as 20 ft., and whose free-throw record (93%) is the best on the squad. Guards Tony Yates (6 ft. 1 in.) and Larry Shingleton (5 ft. 10 in.) are the playmakers and the key men in the Cincinnati defense. "Yates." says Jucker, "is the greatest defensive player in college basketball." The notion that Cincinnati might go an entire season undefeated, particularly in the tough Missouri Valley Conference (other schools: Bradley. Wichita, St.

Louis, Drake, Tulsa, North Texas State), has never crossed Coach Juckers mind--or so he says. But it sometimes occurs to rival coaches. "I saw Cincinnati beat Kansas," says Joe Swank, whose own Tulsa team boasts a 5-0 record, "and they just looked invincible. I couldn't sleep after I watched them play."

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