Who Was Our Best Ball Handler?

Posted by Dan Jensen

I've not given much thought to this, but who do you think our best ball handler was during the Carlisle reign?

I was just thinking about Wayne Townsend, who played on the state champion team of 1963 and the state runnerup in 1964.  I have already commented on another thread about his very, very low shooting percentage as a junior and wanted to compare that with his senior figures but my thoughts wandered to his very, very good ball handling skills.

Who do you think was our best ball handler?  Three that quickly come to my mind are Townsend, Paul Timmins and Buddy Carlisle but I have not nearly seen them all.  Who is your nominee? 

Opponents had no chance of success against us with a man to man press.  The ball handler's four teammates would head down court, leaving our expert ball handler in a one on one situation that he would win every time.  Many times, a behind-the-back dribble would be the deciding factor.

Comments

[Ed Davis]

T'weren't me! I am pretty sure it was not Hugh Taylor or Charlie Milligan either. I am not too familiar with those who came later, but I do remember that Norman Lunday was rather adept at bringing the ball down the court.

[Dan Jensen]

I'm sure not going to start digging, but I doubt if we ever had a starting guard who shot more poorly than Wayne Townsend did as a junior in 1963. He was a deluxe point guard but shooting wasn't his game--as a junior.

I have checked his senior stats and, lo and behold, he showed great improvement. After shooting only 44 times and making 8 for 18 percent from the floor, he fired it up 149 times as a senior and hit just a fraction under 50 percent. Now, Bennie Lenox would be proud of such a percentage. Townsend shot 63 percent from the free throw line as a junior; not great but plumb better than the 48 percent of the year before. He averaged less than a point a game as a junior but 6 as a senior.

Who was our "shooting coach" for Townsend's senior year? Whoever it was, he must not have been there the year before.

How does Townsend compare with Sir Edward Davis as a sharpshooter? I am not jabbing at Ed this time; he was a good shooter.

Ed shot 43 percent from the floor as a junior and slipped to just 39.5 the next year and you will note that is less than the 49.6 of Townsend's senior year.

But, in fairness to Sir Ed, he was the better shooter and proved it at the foul line with 74.6 percent his junior year and 74.0 as a senior.

I hope those numbers didn't make you dizzy. I like numbers--especially Clear Creek numbers.

[Dan Jensen]

I just typed out a fairly long, fairly detailed statistical item on Townsend's senior season. When I finished, I looked away and was otherwise involved for a few moments and poof, my message had gone to never, never land! A plumb puzzlement it is.

On a thread previously, I would get a "review" message rather than it posting and Brother Pat has not been able to post anything for a while. Ye olde administrator Ed Davis is working on that.

Have any of the rest of you had such a problem? Now, if you do you obviously cannot tell us here but you can email Sir Edward. I hope this is not the reason so few of you are posting on this blog.

[Dan Jensen]

Let us take a look at Wayne Townsend and his improved shooting in his senior year, 1964.

We began the season with losses to Texas City and Spring Branch and he shot just three times in each game. He doubled his attempts in the next three games and we won them all.

Then against Spring Branch Memorial, he reverted back to three shots. We lost. He took about the same number of shots the next four games but we somehow managed to win those.

Then he took a complete rest against Galena Park. Guess who lost? We later lost a game to Houston Stephen F. Austin but it wouldn't have mattered how many shots he took then because Ken Spain, who later played with Elvin Hayes at the University of Houston in that big Astrodome game against UCLA and Lew Alcindor, was busy shooting and scoring 34 points.

Maybe Townsend was resting his shooting arm for district play. He shot nine times and scored 11 points against Deer Park, eight times and scored 12 against Dickinson and then scored seventeen (17) points against Channelview. That was his career high and came on seven of ten from the field and all three free throws.

He led all our scorers in that game and must have thought it too much work because he then reverted back to his old style although he was in double figures later against LaPorte and LaMarque.

He never was needed as a scorer for us and that was certainly the case in the playoffs as Jimmie Dale Lenox had 27, 26 and 30 in wins over Wharton, Brenham and Kilgore and 21 in a 60-50 loss to Graham in the state finals.

We finished 25-7 that year. We could not have done it without Wayne Townsend.