Crimson Hoopmen Suffer From Lack of Experience and Height

Harvard's basketball team was a doormat for E. I. L. clubs last year and seems destined for almost the same fate again. The Sophomore crop is far above average in everything but height, but that deficiency is apt to cost them a lot of games.

As the young team gains experience, it may be able to match most of the League fives in everything but height. Unfortunately, there are no ready-made tall stars on this year's Yardling squared to brighten the future. Inexperience, however, is a common virtue for Stahleymen.

Loads of Inexperience

This year's Varsity squad of 12 contains two men who never played basketball before they came to Harvard and five others who were regular bench-warmers in high school. It's getting so that in a couple of years the Indoor Athletic Building will become a haven for eager prep substitutes. You should be at least a second All-State man to survive one cut anywhere else.

Captain Charley Lutz, best of all Crimson hoopmen, was too light to make his high school team at Gary, Ind. His running mate, Bill Webber, saw little regular service at Des Moines, Iowa. Diminutive Chet Legg is the only man who was a full-fledged regular before he came to Harvard. Legg played at Evanston High in Illinois and Exeter Academy. The other ranking forward, Fran Simpson, did bench duty at Oak Park, Illinois.

Johnny Rigby and Ed Rothschild both started playing the cage sport for exercise during their Freshman year. The latter had never touched a basketball until he decided to try a week or so of it to get in condition for hockey.

Sam White got in for four minutes during his three years at Evanston High, and Joe Romano played for a year at Worcester Academy--another experienced man! Sophomore Ed Buckley played regularly for four years at Ely, Minnesota and captained the team his last year there. Bob James is the only other high school captain on the roster; he played three seasons of forward and guard at Harvard Prep in Chicago.

Bud Finegan turned in three years of backcourt duty at Gloucester, and big Jack Penson supplies the lone touch of experience at the pivot post, holding down a regular job for two years at St. Paul's.

That these boys can win a few ball games and make others close is a tribute to their willingness to work and to the ability of their coach, Wes Fesler. He is teaching them sound basketball from the ground up!