Sink Crimson, 50-25; Poorer Varsity, 44-43

Harvard's basketeers ended their 1943 season on the sourest not possible Saturday night, falling to an inept Yale quinet 44 to 43 at the Indoor Athletic Building in what was undoubtedly the worst Ivy League game of the season, if not of many seasons.

There is an old and proven basketball axiom that it is hard to look good against a poor team. Sloppy basketball is infectious, and the hackers will invariably pull the better outfit down to their level. Harvard not only descended against the Elis; it stooped lower than its foe.

Traveling Flagrant

In the first half, amid lost balls galore, amid more traveling than has been seen anywhere since the Okies settled in California, the Elis moved to a 24 to 23 lead. Fleet Eli guard Gil Gibbon, one of the more flagrant offenders of the ban on walking, slipped through an amazingly porous Crimson man-to-man defense for twelve points in the first ten minutes.

This spurt was all that kept the Blue alive early in the ball game, and three successive baskets by Gibbon enabled Red Rolfe's crew to overtake a Crimson lead and go ahead 14 to 12 after 10 minutes. The boys matched baskets most of the remaining time, and Guy MacGauhey tallied three quick points near the end of the session to keep Yale ahead.

Worse and Worse

The Elis pulled even farther ahead in the second half, and here the Harvard five reached its all-season nadir. In the first ten minutes of the period, while Yale took a 35 to 27 lead, the team took exactly five shots at the basket. Every time the Varsity moved down the floor, it found a new way to lose the ball. Blind passes, stolen balls, and what passed for Eli aggressiveness all took their toll. Underneath the backboard the Crimson was helpless.

The play was unbeliveably sloppy, and Sam Schoenfeld, whose officiating is confined almost entirely to Madison Square Garden, must have been amazed at what went on. A moment didn't pass without players of both sides on the floor scrambling for the ball, and the walking which had marked the first half, seemed like a short jaunt compared to the mass hegiras both teams indulged in during the last twenty minutes.

Pressing Pays

Harvard rallied after eighteen minutes had passed, and decided finally to press Yale in the backcourt. These tactics paid off, the Blue not having learned how to bring the ball up against such an apparently new device, and Frank Bixler dunked two fouls. Hugh Hyde slipped in for a basket. Mike Keene converted a layup--all within fifty seconds. But the Crimson five was still three points behind, and Jack Torgan's long-range effort as the final gun sounded still left Harvard a point behind.

The Varsity seemed absolutely unable to cope with Yale's man-to-man defense. After bringing the ball up, the guards would lose the ball time and again, while waiting in vain for somebody to cut for the hoop. Yale's play was equally bad; against the Crimson man-to-man, the Elis had little to offer in the way of an offense, but their shots were dropping now and then, and Harvard was shooting hardly at all.

It was puerlie, high school basketball most of the way. The Harvard shooters, to a man, were woefully off; for Yale, only Gibbos and MacGauhey looked as HARVARD  G  F  P Bixler, lf  3  2  8 Shields, lf  2  0  4 Hennessey, rf  0  0  0 Keene, rf  1  0  2 Hyde, c  5  3  13 Torgan, lg  3  1  17 Dillion, rg  3  3  9     --  --  -- Total  17  9  43