Crimson Five Plays Indians Tonight, Hopes to Avenge Previous 61-55 Loss

The varsity basketball team plays Dartmouth at the IAB tonight after 11 straight road games, and the Crimson returns in far better shape than most people thought it would.

After 13 games its record is 8-5, including six wins in a row at one point. In the Ivy League, where it was picked to finish in the nether reaches of the second division, the Crimson is 1-2, and tied for fourth place. A win tonight will give them sole possession of that spot.

Dartmouth's only league win has been over the Crimson, 61-55, in hoary Hanover last week. The Indians lost to Columbia and Cornell in their other games, and are one of the three teams tied for fourth with Harvard.

Spahn Leads Dartmouth

Leading the attack is junior Steve Spahn, a 6 ft., 1 in guard with a good one hand set shot from as far as 35 feet. Sam Barton, who scored 15 points in the first game, and captain Bill Shanahan play the corners. Jim Bell is the center and Steve Swirsky teams with Spahn in the backcourt.

Despite the Crimson's late successes, deficiencies still appear.

Three men, Dennis Lynch, Pete Kelley, and Gary Borchard, have done almost all the scoring with occasional assistance from Joe Deering. None of the four sophomores on the squad have been much help, with Bob Inman being the top scorer at 4.1 points per game.

The rebounding suffers from a general lack of height throughout the lineup, although Bill Danner can be counted on to give opponents three or four inches taller a good battle.

In the backcourt Deering has been scoring 9.9 points per game, but neither his ball handling nor his speed is outstanding. Gene Augustine is the "holler guy" Harvard teams have lacked in recent years, but except for a few good nights has not been scoring. Reserves Sid Davis and Tom Tangeman have seen little action, and last week coach Floyd Wilson dropped Davis to the junior varsity where "he could play every day."

To replace Davis, Wilson elevated sophomore Barry Dym, one of the top scorers on the JV's and a starter on last year's freshman team.

And yet the Crimson is developing into a solid ball team. Until someone comes up with a brainstorm at the Med School (or the Admissions Office) the height problem will remain. But the other problems show signs of eventual solution, and that could cause some of the teams at the top of the league, including representatives of a small liberal arts school in New Haven, a few anxious moments.