College Basketball: A Closer Look at Rebounding

Last week, I went to lunch with Swen Nater, who was a teammate of mine when I was with the Virginia Squires.  For those of you who are not familiar with him, Swen went to college at UCLA and basically was the backup center, playing behind the great Bill Walton.  Although not playing much with UCLA, at 6'11" and over 250 pounds he still created interest from the pros.

In 1973, the Squires drafted him, and he was quite the surprise.  Swen quickly proved to be a force on the floor.  Very strong, he could score on the low block and was a very good rebounder.   Unfortunately for us with the Squires, he was sold to the San Antonio Spurs during his rookie season, where he went on to have a fine rookie year, averaging 14 points and over 12 rebounds per game.

Continuing with the demise of the Squires, I think it was about three weeks later that the Squires sold the “Iceman,” George Gervin, to the Spurs.  This was after the Squires had sold Julius Erving to the Nets the year before, and Charlie Scott to the Suns the year before that.  That could have been quite the team.

Swen went on to have a fine NBA career, playing a total of 11 seasons, averaging 12 points and 11 rebounds, and shooting 54 percent from the field for his career.  During the 1979-80 season, when he was with the San Diego Clippers (prior to moving to LA), Swen led the NBA in rebounding, averaging 15 rebounds per game.

Since retiring from the NBA, Swen has gone on to a career in business while keeping a hand in basketball.  He co-wrote a book with Coach John Wooden pertaining to Wooden’s UCLA offense, and another book with Coach Pete Newell pertaining to post play.  Also, through the years, he has done numerous clinics working with post players, and I am surprised that he never became a coach.

After catching up with our individual lives, our conversation, not surprisingly, got around to basketball.  We talked about old times and about the state of basketball today. Swen made plenty of good observations, but one in particular really piqued my interest.

Swen told me that through the years he has charted hundreds of college games, keeping stats on different aspects of the game.  Being a top-notch rebounder as a player, one of the things he tracked was the rebounding tendencies in college basketball.

He found that almost 50 percent of the time the player who first touched the ball on a rebound did not end up with the rebound, meaning that almost 50 percent of the time the ball is tipped around and somebody else ends up, ultimately, with the ball.

The obvious conclusion: Because so much of the time a rebound is not cleanly taken, the team that has more players at the boards will be the better rebounding team.

It comes as no big surprise that the team that makes a commitment to send players to the boards will be better than a team that does not make an equal commitment.  As a coach, I always had one of my assistant coaches be responsible for rebounding.  His main responsibility was to remind players every time a shot was taken in practice to get to the boards.  We wanted to create good habits.

However, when we think about great rebounders, we think that they are the guys who leap above everyone, or the guys who get good position early and end up snatching the ball cleanly.  From Swen’s observation, the good rebounders are those guys who continually make an effort to go to the boards, and who give great second and third efforts.  No real shock there.

However, it does show that size is not a cure all.  Habits and effort are more important.

Leaving the lunch, I was anxious to see some games and test what Swen was talking about.  Well, I watched some games this weekend, and while I did not chart the games, I became very aware of how often rebounds are not retrieved cleanly.

Check it out as you watch games.  I think you will find it interesting.

Image Source: RememberTheABA.com