Cal Basketball: Bears Could Benefit from Stephen Curry's Documentary on Jump-Shot Pioneer

No team from a major conference made fewer three-pointers than Cal in 2019-20

Perhaps Cal could learn something from Ken Sailors, who is featured in a documentary, "Jump Shot," produced by Stephen Curry.

(Sports Illustrated provides a description of the film and the people in it. The documentary is set for a special digital release on April 16-18 at JumpShotMovie.com.)

The Bears made only 5.0 three-point shots per game in the 2019-20 season, and that ranked 339th of 350 Division I schools. More to the point, no team from one of the top 10 basketball conferences (AAC, ACC, A-10, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Mountain West, Pac-12, SEC, WCC) made fewer this past season.

Some of that is the result of Cal’s slower pace on offense, resulting in fewer possessions. But the Bears were not last in the Pac-12 in field-goal attempts overall, so it's clear three-point shooting was not Cal's forte.  The Bears made just 160 three-point shots the entire season, and nine Division I schools made at least twice that many.

Seven Pac-12 players and 39 players across the country shot 39 percent or better from three-point range, but no Cal player was among them. Matt Bradley was the best long-range shooter for the Bears at 38.4 percent, and his 66 long-range field goals accounted for more than 40 percent of Cal’s made three-pointers.

And Bradley often had to shoot through extreme defensive pressure to get off his perimeter shots because opposing defenses always focused on him, as the team’s lone big-time scoring threat. 

He led the Pac-12 in three-point percentage as a freshman in 2018-19, when he made 47.2 percent of his long-range attempts. But percentages tend to go down when you are the target of opposing defenses.

Bradley banked in a game-winning three-pointer againt Washington, and he tlks about that in this video:

So Cal needs perimeter help on offense, and perhaps the Sailors documentary can provide some tips. You will note in the video that the speaker says Sailors “popularized” the jump shot, because there is considerable disagreement about which player actually invented the jump shot.

John Miller Cooper, who played for Missouri in the 1930s, is given credit by many experts, and that was a decade before Sailors, who is recognized because he led Wyoming to the 1943 NCAA title.

Others sometimes credited with inventing the jump shot are Glen Roberts, Myer “Whitey” Skoog, John Gonzales, Bud Palmer and Dave Minor. And there are others.

One name you will frequently see associated with the invention of the jump shot is Hank Luisetti of Stanford, the best basketball player in the country prior to World War II. He was a three-time consensus All-American and two-time national player of the year in the 1930s. 

But he didn’t invent the jump shot. What he did do was bring the one-handed shot into vogue. Until then, players would wait until they had plenty of room, steady themselves, then launch a two-handed set shot. Luisetti’s shot allowed him to streak across the lane and hit one-handed shots on the move. It would not resemble today’s jump shot, however; it was more akin today’s floater or tear drop, although from a greater distance from the hoop. His scoring totals wowed everyone in the country.

Anyway, the documentary produced by Curry seems like it would be worthwhile to view.