Basketball -- a game indisputably American in origin -- has been embraced around the globe. But some observers of the game wish America would play the kind of basketball the rest of the world plays today.

Signs abound that the international game is blossoming. The National Basketball Association plays the best basketball in the world, but players from China, Eastern Europe and Africa are among the biggest talents in the league.

Players around the world excel at the game that America invented -- a team game of sharp passing, effective screening and accurate shooting. It's a game that some fear Americans are forgetting as the lane grows more congested with bigger and taller bodies and televised game highlights emphasize flashy individual play over intricate teamwork.

Foreign-born players even make a mark in NCAA play, frequently leading such fundamentals-based statistical categories as free-throw shooting.

"I think the international game is better, with the widened lane and better ball movement," said NCAA Executive Vice-President Tom Jernstedt, who also currently serves as president of USA Basketball. "I'll always remember, during the men's FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis in 2002, I had at least a dozen people during the course of that competition -- basketball fans from Indianapolis, for the most part, who hadn't seen the game played with international rules -- comment that the international game is better. It's faster and more open and fluid."

And it's noteworthy that the American team did not fare well during that 2002 competition in its own heartland, placing sixth.

"In the early years, USA coaches went abroad to participate in international clinics," Jernstedt said. "I think we've learned that our friends in foreign countries have been very coachable, because now they're coming back and beating us.

"It's a fact that our coaches aren't receiving as many invitations to go abroad as they did in those early years."

C. M. Newton, a former player, coach and athletics director who helped shepherd implementation of the 45-second clock and three-point line as a member and then chair of the NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee, sees differences not only in style of play but in the rules -- and wonders why.

"I'm a great proponent of the international lane, the trapezoid lane. I've been very vocal in that regard," Newton said. "We're the only country in the world that doesn't play with that lane.

"Granted, basketball was invented here, but it's played well in a lot of parts of the world; it's not just played well in the United States. Frankly, I think the international game is a better game because of the trapezoid lane."

Newton says America's low-post game is too difficult to officiate and congests the basket area, restricting the type of ball movement that was a hallmark of the past -- and is typical of how the rest of the world plays the game today. He is critical of reluctance during the past year to adopt the wider lane in NCAA competition, despite support for the move by the rules committee.

"The argument that I hear is that we've not experimented with the trapezoidal lane," he said. "But that is not true; the whole world plays with the trapezoidal lane. All you have to do is watch international basketball, and that's the kind of game that you'll have.

"Now, if you don't want a passing, cutting, screening game -- a more open-court game -- then keep the game you've got. But I happen to think it would really help college basketball."

-- Jack Copeland