I saw the Milan vs. Muncie Central 1954 Indiana HS State Championship game on ESPN Classic tonight.
Some rule items stood out to me.
1. The officials had no concept of areas of coverage. Each official (2-man system) seemed to call fouls or violations all over the floor. The Lead stood directly under the basket quite a bit. He hunched over at the waist, too.
The officials also mirrored each others OOB calls and sometimes switched by running from Lead to Lead after an OOB violation near midcourt.

2. One free throw was awarded for each nonshooting foul. This was true on a charging call too! Truly where the term bonus comes from. Starting with the Xth team foul of the half a second "bonus" FT was awarded if the first attempt was successful.

3. The key was the old skinny deal. Three players lined up on each side of it during FTs. The bizarre part was that the defense had the bottom space on one side of the lane, while the OFFENSE had the bottom space on the other side!

4. The players not in those six spaces did not have to be behind the FT line extended (there was no three point line either) since they were down there right behind those players along the lane.

5. There was no possession arrow. Each quarter began with a jump ball in the center circle. There was one jump ball in a FT circle after a held ball was called near a basket.

6. No shot clock. Bobby Plump of Milan held the ball for over FOUR minutes near the division line in the fourth quarter while Milan trailed 28-26.


What a great piece of basketball history! The old rules can certainly give us modern officials some perspective.