Before 1954 the NBA had no shot clock, and in a game on Nov. 22, 1950, Fort Wayne held the ball for most of the game to keep it close while the Lakers resorted to fouling to get the ball back.

Danny Biasone, owner of the Syracuse Nationals, worked out the 24-second clock from box scores. The best games had about 60 shots per team, or 120 per game, and 120 shots divided into 48 minutes (2,880 seconds) is 24 seconds a shot; the NBA added the 24-second shot clock for the 1954-55 season, when only eight teams were left, to make play faster.

The NBA adopted the three-point shot for the 1979-80 season. Many teams and players thought it a publicity stunt; Boston's Red Auerbach said, “I say leave our game alone.”

Chris Ford of the Boston Celtics made the first three-point shot in NBA history on Oct. 12, 1979, in the first quarter of a game against the Houston Rockets, and the NCAA adopted the three-point line for men's college basketball on April 2, 1986, at 19 feet, 9 inches. In its first full season teams tried only 9.2 threes a game and made 3.5, and in 2004 the WNBA moved its three-point line from 19 feet 9 inches to 20 feet 6¼ inches and widened the lane from 12 feet to the NBA's 16 feet.

A committee led by Senda Berenson made her rules for women the standard. The rules were published in 1901 by Spalding Athletic Library, with five to 10 players on a side; in women's college rules, the five-player, full-court game and the 30-second clock were made official in 1971-72. The women's game came almost back to the game designed by Naismith.

Pat Summitt co-captained the U.S. team at the first Olympic women's basketball tournament in 1976 and coached Team USA to gold at the 1984 Games, and in 2004, Argentina, led by Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola, beat the United States in the Olympic semifinals and then won the gold medal in Athens.

The NCAA tournament term “March Madness” was first used for basketball by an Illinois high school official, Henry V. Porter, in 1939, and it was tied to the NCAA tournament after Brent Musburger used it on 1982 coverage.

The NCAA used a 45-second shot clock, reduced it to 35 seconds less than a decade later and then to 30. In 2000, FIBA cut its time to shoot, called its possession limit, from 30 seconds to 24.

Words to know

• semifinals: next-to-last games
• possession: having the ball
• publicity: public attention
• committee: working group
• adopted: chose to use