Basketball Great Hank Luisetti Dies at 86

AP ^

[TheOtherOne]

Basketball Great Hank Luisetti Dies at 86.
By Ron Harris Associated Press Writer
Published: Dec 21, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Basketball great Hank Luisetti, whose high-scoring performances in the 1930s turned the then-unorthodox one-hand shot into a staple of the game, has died. He was 86.

Luisetti died Tuesday in San Mateo, said his companion Nancy Gommeringer. Luisetti had been ill with an unknown ailment for four months, she said Saturday.

The 6-foot-3 Luisetti led Stanford University to a stunning 45-31 upset of Long Island-Brooklyn before 17,000 people in Madison Square Garden on Dec. 30, 1936. The victory, which snapped a 43-game Long Island winning streak, catapulted Western basketball into the forefront of the sport and revolutionized the game itself.

Luisetti finished with 15 points, a substantial individual performance in an era when teams rarely topped 45 points a contest. The one-hand shot was viewed as silly and unreliable - at least in the East.

"He has to be considered one of the innovators of the modern game of basketball," Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said Saturday about Luisetti.

Born Angelo Luisetti to immigrant parents on June 16, 1916, in San Francisco, Luisetti attended Galileo High School, where coach Tommy DeNike introduced him to the one-hand shot.

"But taking it to New York provided national exposure, much to the dismay of conservative coaches who taught the two-handed religion," according to the official NCAA history of basketball. "It was more than that, though. Luisetti was an amazing dribbler and passer 30 years ahead of his time with his moves."

Years later, Luisetti recalled how amazed the Long Island players were when his shots went through the hoop.

"The first one came after a fake and a pivot near the foul line. It was over their big man. He looked at me and said, 'You lucky so-and-so.' He didn't say a word when the next one dropped in."

Almost everything the Stanford forward did astonished the Garden crowd, not just because he did it and did it well, but because it was done in an unorthodox manner. He dribbled and passed behind his back, appeared to shoot without looking at the basket and faked while driving when most players just drove.

Luisetti later became the first college player to score 50 points in a game when Stanford beat Duquesne 92-27 on New Year's Day in 1938.

After college, Luisetti played part of two seasons of AAU ball with the San Francisco Olympic Club and the Phillips Oilers of Oklahoma. He lost his amateur status for a year in 1939 when he received $10,000 for appearing as a college basketball player in "Campus Confessions," a movie starring Betty Grable.

"She didn't know I existed," Luisetti said of his co-star.

He joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor and contracted spinal meningitis, which ended his playing career. Some say Luisetti played his best ball in the service before he fell ill in 1944.

In 1943-44, his last season, Luisetti and his St. Mary's Pre-Flight teammates went undefeated. Luisetti consistently outscored the other service stars, including All-America Jim Pollard of Stanford's 1942 NCAA championship team and later a pro standout with Minneapolis.

AP-ES-12-21-02 2046EST

[hole_n_one]

[TheOtherOne]

Thanks - thats a great shot.