Basketball Team To Hit The Road

The varsity basketball will play Columbia in New York tonight and Cornell in Ithaca tomorrow night, but trying to figure out what's going to happen is a job for an IBM machine, a divine, or a madman.

Taken at a glance, the Ivy basketball league doesn't appear to be too different from any other league: all the players wear uniforms, and five of them play at once for each team. And yet something always seems to happen.

Like for instance last year when the Crimson made the same trip. Friday night in New York a sophomore, Fred Portnoy scored four points in the last 25 seconds, the last two with a second remaining (although many observers thought it was a bit later than that), and Harvard lost by two. The next night the team played one of its best games of the year in ripping Cornell.

This year again is a puzzler. After winning six in a row the Crimson lost the final of the Washington University tournament to Valparaiso, 68-66, and then defeated Carnegie Tech on the way East for a 7-3 record.

But playing Dartmouth in Hanover last Saturday, the Crimson combined some lackadaisical rebounding and errant shooting to lose its first Ivy game, 61-55.

Inman To Start

In an effect to get more rebounding strength in the lineup coach Floyd Wil- son said yesterday he will start Bob Inman, a 6 ft., 4 in. sophomore, in place of senior Bill Danner tonight against the Lions. The rest of the team will be the same: Denny Lynch, Gary Borchard, Joe Deering and Gene Augustine. Pete Kelley, the team's leading scorer, is still listed as sixth man.

Columbia started the year looking like its best hope for a victory would be against Barnard. But the Lions have started to jell under their new coach, Jack Rohan, and went to the finals of the Down East Classic last month before losing to Rochester. The top player thus far has been sophomore Art Wollan-sky, a 5 ft., 10 in. guard, who scores most of his points on line drive jump shots from outside. Jim Brogan, the 6 ft., 7 in. center, is erratic but tough under the boards. The rest of the team includes captain and floor leader Marty Erdheim, Jim Glynn, and another sophomore, cornerman Roy Bahoboy.

Cornell Strong

Cornell, on the other hand, started the season as if its best chance for a defeat would be against Ohio State. A highly successful holiday trip included an upset victory over Illinois, and the Big Red must rate as a championship threat, even in a league that includes such fine teams as Penn, Princeton, and Yale.

Providing Ithaca isn't snowed in, the Crimson will fly up from New York tomorrow morning and play in cavernous Barton Hall at night. Cornell reportedly is big and strong: captain Don Shaffer and Bill Baugh are 6 ft., 4 in., Orio Clark and Jerry Krumbein are 6 ft., 6 in., and Jerry Szachara in 6 ft., 1 in.

But statistics deceive. Clark and Krumbein are thin and can be pushed around, but Baugh is rugged. Actually Szachara can rebound as well as any of them, and also scores and sets up plays. He leads the scorers, with Baugh close behind. The Big Red has several good sophomores on the bench