Yale Five Overcomes Crimson, 72-70

Exactly what happened to the varsity basketball team in the second half of Saturday's game at the Blockhouse is hard to tell, but it gave Yale a 72 to 70 victory in the last five seconds of play. The loss put the Big Three basketball race into a three-way tie, and enabled Yale to edge out Harvard for fifth place in the Eastern League.

Bob Harding's game-winning tap stunned the crowd of 1,800 which had watched the Crimson easily pile up a 45 to 35 half-time lead. Operating against the Blue's usual zone defense, the home team hit on its long shots and was occasionally able to work the ball under the basket to Ed Smith or John Stevenson. Harvard's first half shooting average was its best of the year--50 percent.

Even as the half ended the seeds of defeat were being sown--Gerry Murphy got his fourth personal on a questionable call, and did not start the next half. In his place was sophomore Forrest Hansen, who added rebounding strength but made mistakes owing to inexperience.

Yale Coach Howie Hobson added to the Crimson's misery by adopting a man-to-man defense and by instituting a full court press with 15 minutes left to play.

Bad shooting luck began to haunt the Crimson as the ball rolled in and then out of the basket. The team's confidence seemed shaken. Yale, on the other hand, had begun to hit--Jerry Labriola got all of his nine points in the last half. Despite Smith's efforts, the Elis took control of the boards.

The loss on fouls of play-maker Bill Hickey with more than seven minutes left in the game badly slowed down the