Rick Mount
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Richard Carl (Rick) Mount (born January 5, 1947, in Lebanon, Indiana) is an American former basketball player, who is considered by many to be the best pure shooter ever to play college basketball. His nickname was The Rocket.
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[edit] Early years
Mount attended Lebanon High School from 1962-1966. There, he developed his famous and deadly-accurate jump-shot. From his first game as a freshman until he graduated, he started and scored in double figures each time he stepped on the court. He averaged 27.3 points over 94 career high school games, and finished with 2,595 points, which at the time ranked second on Indiana’s all-time prep scoring list.
His high school single-game high was 57 against Crawfordsville High School. He was named the nation's best high school player by USA Basketball Yearbook in 1966, his senior year. On Feb. 14, 1966, he became the first high school team athlete featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and the third high school athlete overall. No other high school basketball player appeared on the magazine's cover until Kevin Garnett was highlighted there in 1995. Mount was named Mr. Basketball for Indiana at the end of his senior season.
[edit] College career
Following high school, the 6-foot-4, 175-pound Mount initially committed to Miami University, but under pressure from home state fans, he accepted a scholarship from Purdue University.
Under prevailing NCAA rules at the time, freshmen were not allowed to play varsity sports, so he started his career with the Purdue freshman team. In their first game, the freshmen scrimmaged the varsity before a crowd of 9,500 fans. Mount scored 33 points on 9-of-21 shooting. For the year, he scored a freshman record 490 points, averaging 35.0 points per game and shooting 54.5 percent from the field.
His first varsity season, as a sophomore, Mount finished with a 28.4 scoring average. He was named first-team All-Big Ten, second team All-American by the UPI and third team by the Associated Press.
In the 1968-69 season, Mount averaged 33.3 points a game, including two 45-point efforts. Mount was named first team All-Big Ten and consensus first team All-American. His efficiency his junior year compared favorably to those of Pete Maravich and Calvin Murphy, contemporaries in feats of scoring. While Maravich and Murphy scored more points per game, Mount shot far better from the field. He shot an incredible 51.5 percent, while Maravich shot 45.2 percent and Murray shot 43.7 percent.
During his senior season at Purdue, Mount scored 53 points twice, and 61 against Iowa, on 27-of-47 shooting. Later research found that if the three-point line had existed in 1970, Mount would have scored 74 points in that game.
Mount again was named consensus first team All-American after his senior season, along with first team All-Big Ten. He set a conference scoring record with 39.4 points per game, a mark that still stands today. For the season, he averaged 35.4 points while shooting 48.9 percent from the field.
For his career, Mount was a two-time consensus All-American and three-time first team All-Big Ten pick.
He is Purdue's all-time scoring leader, despite playing just 72 games, all without the three-point line, which was instituted in 1986. He also still holds the Big Ten conference scoring average record with 32.3 points per game, which is seventh all-time nationally.
To illustrate the high regard for Mount's shooting ability, Scripps Howard News Service conducted a poll of 30 current college basketball coaches and 10 former coaches, asking them to select the best outside shooter in history. Mount was the top vote-getter.
[edit] Professional career
Despite his prowess as a college scorer, pro scouts were not impressed with Mount’s lack of quickness, mediocre ballhandling and his softness on defense. As a result, he was not drafted until late in the eight round of the NBA 1970 college draft. His college scoring rivals, Maravich and Murphy, were both drafted much higher—Maravich number three overall and Murphy the first player selected in the second round.
Mount was drafted No. 1 overall in the 1970 American Basketball Association draft and signed with the Indiana Pacers. He averaged 11.8 points a game in five years with the Indiana, Kentucky Colonels, Utah Stars and Memphis Sounds franchises, before injuries ended his career.
Mount had gotten off to a strong start with the Sounds at the start of his fifth year in the league. He was having his best pro season and was leading the team with a 20.1 points a game average. But in early December, he suffered a shoulder separation that sidelined him for 58 games. He retired from pro ball at the end of the 1974-75 season.
Mount's field goal percentage in the ABA was 43.3 percent, but his three-point shooting percentage (the ABA had a three-point line during its entire existence) was a meager 31.7 percent, although he was shooting at a 42.6 percent rate from the three-point line when he was injured during the 1974-75 season.
Mount now runs a basketball camp in Monticello, Indiana, called "Rick Mount Shooting School" and has produced a video/DVD on his shooting technique titled "Mount Method of Simplified Shooting Skills."
[edit] External links
[edit] Sources
- Jeff Washburn, Tales from Indiana High School Basketball (Sports Publishing 2004).
