Woodling: Scorers need help dishing assists

By Chuck Woodling     Dec 21, 2004

For a couple of years now, it has been obvious that, barring injury, Aaron Miles would leave Jacque Vaughn in the dust.

Early next month, Miles will become Kansas University’s career leader in assists, surpassing the 804 Vaughn compiled during his four seasons as the Jayhawks’ point guard.

With that milestone will come this question: Does Miles have a shot at the NCAA career assists record?

Let’s put it this way. He has a better chance of receiving a Christmas card from President Bush.

Miles was credited with 252 assists during his freshman season, 244 his sophomore year and 242 last year. Let’s say he accumulates 240 during his final season. That conservative figure would give the 6-foot-1 native of Portland, Ore., a career total of 978 and place him fifth on the NCAA career list.

Surprised? So was I.

I figured with Miles on target to blow Vaughn’s school and Big Eight record — Vaughn played three years in the Big Eight and one in the Big 12 — to smithereens that Miles would have a legitimate shot at the NCAA mark.

Yet, as good as Vaughn was, he ranked only 24th on the all-time assist list going into this season.

According to the NCAA record book, three players have compiled 1,000 or more assists during their careers. Duke’s Bobby Hurley is No. 1 with 1,076, followed by Chris Corchiani of North Carolina State (1,038), Ed Cota of North Carolina (1,030), Keith “Mister” Jennings of East Tennessee State (983) and Steve Blake of Maryland (972).

Did you notice the Atlantic Coast Conference connection? Four of the top five played for ACC schools.

Year in and year out, you’ll hear the ACC referred to — particularly by television commentators Billy Packer and Dick Vitale — either as THE best or one of the best college basketball leagues in the country. Still, it seems strange the ACC would produce four of the five top assist guys in NCAA history.

I’m not saying ACC schools are more liberal in handing out assists than other leagues, but I do know the assists category is the most subjective of all basketball statistics and therefore ripe for inconsistent interpretation.

Doug Vance confirms as much. Vance spent two decades or so as Kansas University’s sports information director, and he saw both strict and liberal interpretations of the NCAA assists rules.

“It’s a pass that leads to a basket,” Vance said, “but there is obviously a lot of judgment involved. From school to school, you’ll find different philosophies even though the rulebook contains clear-cut definitions.”

Some schools, Vance found, were notoriously liberal in awarding assists.

“There was one that offered to trade you steals for assists,” Vance said. “He’d say he had a guy going for an assist record and he’d boost your guy’s steals total if you went along.”

Other schools, however, were so restrictive that Vance tried in vain to have assists totals amended upward.

“The NCAA will not waver from the box score turned in by a school,” said Vance, now executive director of the Kansas Recreation and Park Assn. in Topeka.

Vance was at KU throughout Vaughn’s career and during Miles’ first two seasons, and he says he admonished his stat crews to be fair.

“We had the philosophy that you had to earn an assist, that there would be no gifts,” Vance said. “We had some arguments with players and coaches about that. Roy (Williams) had his own way of grading films, for instance, and his numbers didn’t necessarily agree with ours.”

Hmmm. It’s no secret Williams came here with an ACC pedigree. Could it be the ACC always has been more liberal in awarding assists than the Big Eight and later the Big 12?

That’s a subjective question, of course, because the human factor involved when it comes to handing out assists.

“I know that among sports information directors,” Vance said, “assists were always the subject of debate. It’s the one stat that I feel draws the most criticism.”

Counting points is easy. Counting rebounds isn’t hard, either. But assists … if ever a statistical category needed an asterisk, it’s that one.

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