Today’s basketball players have no idea of a world without the 3-point line. Taking it away from them would be akin to seizing their cellphones.

How are they going to connect long distance?

Eddie Stansberry was asked if he’s ever even imagined a hoops court sans 3-point line.

“Actually, I can’t, because I’ve never seen one,” said Stansberry, a heavy contributor to the University of Hawaii’s 3-point barrage this season. He was born more than a decade following installation of the curved line 19 feet, 9 inches from the hoop in college basketball, which was later extended a foot.

“Wait, maybe I have, yes, on YouTube,” said Stansberry, after further contemplation. “It looked weird.”

Many current coaches have a vague memory at best of competing on a trey-less court. Some did have to adjust to the game as a player.

“I had this invisible barrier I had to figure out,” said UH women’s coach Laura Beeman, who was a guard at UC Riverside when college basketball added the 3-point line in 1987.

Adam Jacobsen remembers being in sixth grade the day it was announced the 3-pointer would be added. And it didn’t take long for his father to put him and his brother on the long-range path to success.

“We were fortunate,” Jacobsen said. “Two days later my dad painted a line on our outdoor court and we started practicing them.”

Jacobsen and his brother, Casey, made the most of the opportunity. Adam played at Pacific and is now the second-highest 3-point scorer in Big West history. Casey was a first-team All-American while at Stanford; also deadly from deep, he went on to play four NBA seasons.

Today, Adam Jacobsen is the right-hand man of UH head coach Eran Ganot, serving as associate head coach, shooting coach and offensive coordinator. Ganot, 37, has vague memories of the pre-3 world. Like Beeman, he played in it as a kid.

But neither ever had to adjust their recruiting, teaching and tactics like older coaches did.

Some, like UNLV legend Jerry Tarkanian, did so faster than most others.

“When Tark first learned they were putting it in (prior to the 1986-87 season), he said he hated it,” said former Honolulu Star-Bulletin sports editor Mike Fitzgerald, who held the same post at the Las Vegas Sun from 1984 to 1988. “Then he immediately recruits the best (junior college) outside shooter in Texas, Gerald Paddio, anyway.”

On April 2, 1990, UNLV made eight of 14 3-pointers, with Anderson Hunt shooting 4-for-7, and Duke went 1-for-11 in the Rebels’ 103-73 victory for the national championship. Outscoring the Blue Devils 24-3 from beyond the arc was certainly a huge factor.

However, in the early years, relatively few other American coaches embraced the 3-point shot as more than a desperation ploy when trailing late in a game. Many considered it a gimmick.

All those stats and studies about the rest of the world being better at math than Americans are validated by basketball history. Apparently, it was some genius in Croatia, Lithuania or Brazil who discovered the hoops equivalent of “e=mc².” Yes, we are having some fun here. But for whatever reason, “3>2” was commonly accepted first in places very far away from the birthplace of basketball.

They include Australia, where Andrew Gaze started firing 3-pointers in 1988 for his hometown Melbourne Tigers and didn’t stop until his retirement in 2005. The man considered his country’s all-time greatest player made 1,826 3-pointers, leading the NBL (Australia’s top pro league) nine seasons.

Gaze also happens to be an uncle of Jack Purchase, who recently broke the UH record for 3-pointers made. Although it became obvious early on that Purchase would be a very tall person (he is 6-foot-9), Gaze and Purchase’s parents (both also pro basketball players) saw no reason not to teach young Jack correct long-range shooting fundamentals.

“I’ve been fortunate to always have coaches who encouraged me to shoot, and do it correctly,” Purchase said. Then, as he raised his hands, holding an imaginary basketball, from his waist to his head: “Going back to when I was very young, and my dad had me shoot, not from here, but from here.”

Purchase said he continues to learn the art and science of 3-point shooting from Jacobsen, and it isn’t always as simple or easy as it might look. But the math is.

“Especially on a penetration and when you get the ball inside-out, it is the easiest shot you get in basketball except a layup or a free throw,” Jacobsen said. “… An open 3-point shot from a kickout from penetration or a post-up is an easy shot where you’re stepping to the basket. So if you shoot 33 percent or higher, it’s as good as a guy shooting 50 percent on a 2-point shot, which is around what a lot of the real good post players, that’s what they shoot. Our good 3-point shooters are shooting higher than 33 percent.”

‘A game of skill’

“I know it’s changed the development of basketball players the last 15 years,” Chaminade coach Eric Bovaird said. “Mostly with the Europeans. All those big guys could shoot the ball. It started with them. Now everyone wants to have that skill set where they can step outside and shoot it.”

Bovaird and many others credit Rick Pitino as one of the first American coaches to believe in 3, and the former UH assistant who went on to a Hall of Fame career had his players launching bombs at Kentucky and later in the NBA before it was widely en vogue. Pitino was even caught on video at a Mens Masters Tournament game in 2017 making three 3-pointers at age 64.

“Early in the existence of basketball it was designed to be a game of skill, not necessarily strength and size,” Bovaird said. “As it developed and with people wanting to get closer to the basket it turned out to be a muscle war for position. It got so physical — think the Bad Boys, Detroit (Pistons). It was not meant to be that way. But adding the 3-point line and changing some other rules got back to being about skill.”

From the ABA to the NBA

Two monumental things happened in the NBA in 1979. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson entered the league as rookies. And the 3-point line debuted.

The shot had been a staple of the little brother ABA as much as the red, white and blue ball and Julius “Dr. J” Erving’s incredible dunks. That was part of why the “real” league didn’t start shooting them en masse. Another was that it would take a generation until more than Bird and just a few other NBA players were proficient and consistent shooting from beyond 23 feet, 9 inches from the basket (22 feet from the corners).

“At first it wasn’t really considered a weapon … but almost like a last resort,” said Bill O’Rear, the former Hawaii Hilo star guard and Hawaii Tribune-Herald sportswriter who retired to San Diego and still teaches ball-handling and shooting at clinics.

Steph Curry and Golden State teammate Klay Thompson are leaders of the wave that has changed that. At their current pace they will shatter all long-range shooting records. The Warriors have won three of the past four NBA championships.

“The game has changed now, and the 3-point shot has moved from a tool for trying to catch up to one that is often used to blow games open,” O’Rear said.

Curry and Thompson are guards. But their teammate, Kevin Durant, is a 6-foot-9 forward who also possesses a deadly touch from distance.

“In today’s NBA, part of being well-rounded is shooting 3-pointers,” said Bobby Webster, former ‘Iolani player and current general manager of the Toronto Raptors. “As we’ve all seen, part of the evolution of the big man is shooting the (3-point shot).”

And that’s why, when Webster looked to augment his roster before the trade deadline, he dealt for veteran center Marc Gasol. In recent years Gasol has dramatically increased and improved his 3-point shooting.

“First is shooting them,” Webster said. “Then of course is making them.”

Webster, 34, was a senior guard on the first of three consecutive ‘Iolani state championship teams in 2002. During that era, ‘Iolani had a high school version of Curry and Thompson in Derrick Low and Ryan Hirata. Low was virtually unstoppable because of his dribbling, passing, and, yes, 3-point shooting. Hirata was shooting — and making — shots from Curry range, pre-Curry.

In addition to trying to deal with Low, perimeter defenders had to pick up Hirata at 30 feet or suffer the consequences.

“When I’d shoot it from 30 or 31 feet, I didn’t know where I was. But I had a good perception of the basket,” said Hirata, who is now the boys varsity head coach at Mid-Pacific. “I could have my vision line up with the rim and could tell myself, ‘I can hit this.’ ”

The Raiders even had a stretch 4 in high school way before the term existed, as 6-foot-8 Bobby Nash was another legit 3-ball threat.

More than 20 years before the ‘Iolani dynasty, the Raiders’ rivals at Punahou won a state championship, in 1979.

The Buffanblu had a senior with such a taste for outside shooting that some called him Barry Obomber instead of Obama. The future president of the United States mostly rode the bench. Would he have had a bigger role if the 3-pointer existed?

“He probably would have, maybe it would’ve made him more valuable. But we had three or four (NCAA) Division I guys, so it would be pretty hard to (get more playing time), so I’m not sure,” said his coach, Chris McLachlin. “When I see him we joke that if he’d had me 10 years later as a more mature coach I’d have figured out a system to be more generous with playing time.”

Seeking balance

On Valentine’s Day, it might have been fitting if Hawaii just blasted away from beginning to end to create a massacre.

Instead, the game against Cal Poly at the Stan Sheriff Center turned into the ultimate example of inside-out: In the first half, the Rainbows attempted a mere three 3-point shots, with Sheriff Drammeh notching the only long-range make.

You could say the visitors did a good job defensively, as Purchase drew extra attention (he opened the game within one of Zane Johnson’s program standard for 3s and no one wants a record set against them, right?), and Hawaii’s other outside shooters also had limited touches. But UH still led 26-19 because of solid defense, and because the “1s” in the four-out and one-in offense — 7-foot freshman Dawson Carper and 6-8 Zigmars Raimo — combined for 15 first-half points, mostly on point-blank, low-post shots.

It was testament to Ganot’s insistence that the Rainbows do not live and die by the 3. He said this team will win when it does three things, none of which are shooting: play good defense, rebound and limit turnovers.

In the second half, though, it was back to shoot-to-thrill. Hawaii was 7-for-12 from long range, including the 180th trey of Purchase’s three years at UH, matching Johnson’s mark. Purchase made the record his own two nights later.

A week after that, Cal Poly returned the favor, hitting 14 of 24 3-point shots in an 88-80 win over visiting Hawaii.

When Ganot talks about “jacking up 3s,” it is with extreme disdain. He is all about moving the ball inside-out, forcing defenders out of position. And that isn’t achieved only by passing into the post.

“Penetration collapses defenses, and that leads to better outside shots, too,” he said. “When we say penetration, you get more when you can spread the floor, the perimeter. Free-throw rate is big now too. We’ve been good at getting to the line. It all works hand-in-hand. People think we’re just jacking 3s, shooting 3s, but that allows the balance.”

He and Beeman are also insistent on precise timing and spacing — and the concept of being “shot-ready,” a mantra that has somewhat replaced an old one that meant be ready to shoot, pass or dribble. It still does, but now — if you’re behind that arc — “triple threat” has a double meaning.

“When the ball moves, every (open) window closes,” Beeman said. “A post player catches it, and you have to find a window that allows them to see you and you see them, allows you to get enough distance from the defender and get your feet ready. If the post player moves a foot on a dribble, the window changes. Inside-out is definitely difficult, but because of inside-out play defenses collapse.”

When it’s done correctly, defenders end up out of position.

“It allows shooters to get clean looks and bigs to get 1-on-1, and that’s what you want,” Beeman said.

Leah Salanoa has thrived the most among this season’s Wahine shooters, hitting close to 40 percent from 3-point land. In a recent victory, Courtney Middap hit five of eight 3-point shots.

Targeting shooters

“You must always look for a 3-point shooter (in recruiting). You can’t make one,” Tony Sellitto said.

Not all coaches would agree fully, but Sellitto speaks from experience — and success. He is the only head basketball coach in Hawaii history with a state high school championship and a national college championship to his credit. The first came in 1984 at Maryknoll, pre-3-pointer, and the latter in 1993 at Hawaii Pacific, with treys.

When HPU upset top-seeded Oklahoma Baptist 88-83 in the NAIA championship game, the Sea Warriors did it with leading scorer and rebounder Roger Huggins out with an injury.

But tourney MVP Lemar Young scored 24 points — nine of them coming on 3-pointers.

“The 3-pointer has made the game a lot more exciting,” said Sellitto, who started coaching at Maryknoll in the 1960s. “You’re never out of it. All Curry has done is perfect it.”