Gold and Black is a multi-platform media company that covers Purdue athletics like no one else.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/438308
ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 3 27 f erford. "… Every time it went up, we all started getting back on defense because everyone figured it was going in." It's about technique, the same technique his father, Mike Cline, used when he was an outstanding shooter for Ohio State in the '70s and taught his son at a young age. There have been other coaches and in- structors who've dab- bled with Ryan Cline's form over the years, but mostly in consul- tant roles. Cline's education as a jump-shooter be- gan, in essence, with anything but jump shots. "To start with, it was about trying to keep him from shoot- ing (jumpers) far too early," Mike Cline said. "Some kids like to shoot the three too early, and I kept telling him that form was the most import- ant thing. Even if you have to shoot it from (your waist) and get the right push with your right hand. Get- ting the right form from the beginning is what I think he did from a young age in second, third, fourth grade." That was the beginning of Cline's uncompromising form, form devoid of superfluous motion. "From a shooting standpoint, from a teaching stand- point, the less movement you have, the better chance you have to be consistent," said LaSalle Thompson, long-time Cline trainer and father of Boilermaker point guard P.J. Thompson said. "When you watch Ryan shoot the ball, he's extremely compact in his ability to maintain his shooting pocket and his form. There's not a lot of room for movement, which creates less room for error in his shot. That allows him to be consistent in his shooting stroke." It's a highly compact stroke, a motion in which Cline catches the ball with his left hand almost on top of the ball and toward its front ("for security and guid- ance," he says), to be withdrawn prior to his three-finger release, the shot launched in a quick, tight leg burst, kind of like bread pop- ping out of a toaster, bent left elbow left hanging upon release of the ball. Cline was so small and weak when he got to high school — 5-foot-11, 130 pounds, Carmel coach Scott Heady guessed — that he didn't have near the strength to shoot the way he now can, after growing to 6-5. "As I got older I brought it away from the hip and brought it up to my face, then over my head, then got my legs into it," Cline said. "Then I started jumping and putting it over my head, I started doing it sophomore year be- cause honestly I wasn't strong enough freshman year, but sophomore year was when it developed into a real jump shot." It's a wrist-driven delivery that generates blurring rotation and swooping arc and thus very rarely con- Tom Campbell Matt Painter thinks Cline, who will be a freshman next season, could be a 50-percent three-point shooter at Purdue.